JEDDAH: Red Bull’s Sergio Perez will start from pole position for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but his team-mate, world champion Max Verstappen, will only be in 15th after pulling up with a car problem during Saturday’s qualifying.

Perez, who also took pole in last year’s race here, topped the leaderboard with a best lap of 1 minute 28.265 seconds.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was second, 0.155sec behind Perez, but faces a 10-place grid drop, leaving Fernando Alonso to start on the front row in his Aston Martin.

Verstappen topped all the practice sessions but pulled up with a mechanical problem in Q2.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2023