Norris said: “Very happy to be back on top, especially at a track where you certainly want to be on pole.
“I had confidence the whole of today. My laps in Q3 were not the best, even the one at the end, so pleasantly surprised to be on top.”
Hamilton was a second slower on his second run than on his first and was unhappy he had been sent out for it first.
“I had a clean out-lap, and when I started my lap, already into Turn One I had a snap and I was already 0.15secs down,” Hamilton said. “It just cascaded from there.
“So, the last lap was the worst lap of all, and all the other laps were really good. We clearly had the car to be on pole today, and I just didn’t deliver. So that’s tough to swallow.”
On the impeding scenario, Hamilton said he had not been warned of Piastri’s approach by the team: “I was told literally when he was at the apex behind me, so I had no idea he was coming.
“I was the first out, so I thought everyone had finished their lap. Charles, I think, was the car that was behind me when I left the pit lane, as far as I was aware. So, yeah, crazy, because it had been clean, and obviously it wasn’t intentional.”
Antonelli is another driver off to the stewards, in his case for an alleged yellow-flag infringement.
Verstappen, who railed about the unpredictable handling of the Red Bull over the radio after his spin, managed to take sixth, ahead of Russell and the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad and Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg.
