George Russell took pole for the Austrian Grand Prix after a dramatic finish to qualifying, the Mercedes driver claiming top spot despite a yellow flag after Max Verstappen had crashed out.

Russell completed his lap, beating the Ferrari’s of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in second and third, but his lap stood as he had lifted off under the yellow flags.

Verstappen lost the car at turn nine and took a heavy blow into the barriers as he followed Leclerc and Hamilton, who had completed their laps. The flags, immediately shown, meant Russell’s teammate and the championship, leader, Kimi Antonelli, lifted off from his lap. The young Italian will start from fourth, with Verstappen fifth and the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who also eased off in their final runs, in sixth and seventh.

Russell’s pole hung in the balance for a few brief minutes, but it became swiftly clear he had indeed lifted off, fortunately at a point when he already was enjoying almost a half a second advantage when the yellow flags were waved. Single yellows denoting only that drivers have to back off rather than abort the lap as would be the case under double yellows.

“I feel incredible, it was such an amazing lap,” he said. “I saw the yellow and did a big lift into the corner. I was five-tenths up and came out of the corner two and a half tenths up.”

Antonelli was close to his teammate on his hot lap and might have pushed him to the end, but on the evidence of most of Russell’s lap he would still have had the edge. Despite Hamilton and Ferrari taking the win at the last round in Spain, where they looked to be a match for the Mercedes on pace, the silver arrows once more had the advantage over the single lap.

It was the perfect comeback for Russell, who had suffered a problem with his front wing at Barcelona that stymied the last part of his race and who needs to close down Antonelli, who is 50 points ahead in the world championship, with Hamilton in second place, 41 points behind.

Russell produced his fourth GP pole of the season, and his first in Austria, a race he won for Mercedes in 2024. Mercedes remain unbeaten in qualifying this season.

It comes at just the moment the 28-year-old needed to reassert himself over Antonelli, who has won five of the seven races to Russell’s one. With Antonelli suffering a mechanical failure in Spain, Russell has every chance to further narrow the gap on Sunday.

On the short dash round the Red Bull Ring, Norris had set the pace on the first hot runs in Q3 with a lap of 1min 6.0900sec. But Verstappen came up with a magnificent riposte, his best of the weekend by far, with 1:06.475. It was no little marker, but Antonelli had its measure, going quicker by six-hundredths, and Russell following him to take second. Hamilton ran wide at turn three and did not set a time, leaving him one shot at pole.

He duly went out first for the final runs and briefly took provisional pole, only for Leclerc to pip him before the session turned in a moment as Verstappen spun off.

Russell went on to finish his lap and to finish fastest from Leclerc and Hamilton with a time of 1:06.113, a full two-tenths on both Ferraris.

The stewards noted there had been a yellow flag infringement, but deemed no further investigation was necessary.

This report will update