Australian Oscar Piastri will start Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix in the top-half of the grid, as big names struggled in Barcelona.

World champion Max Verstappen took his first pole at Barcelona with a dominating performance.

The Dutchman was almost half-a-second quicker than Carlos Sainz who was second.

Piastri produced one of his best qualifying sessions of the season so far, looking quick from the start of the session to qualify 10th.

While the Australian and his McLaren teammate Lando Norris — third — enjoyed a successful Saturday, there were others who had a torrid time.

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Mercedes’s George Russell were knocked out in the second round of qualifying.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was on pole last year in Barcelona, could only manage 19th.

Leclerc told the UK’s Sky Sports F1 that he felt no grip in his rear tyres, especially during left-hand corners.

“The only thing I can say is the left-hand corners were undriveable,” he said.

“There’s just something off in the left-hand corner that we need to analyse and understand.

“I just had no grip at all in the left-hand corners in the rears.”

Mercedes come together in ‘scary’ collision

The Mercedes garage had a heart-in-mouth moment at the end of Q2, with their drivers coming together at high-speed down the main straight.

Russell moved to the left of the track, unaware his teammate Lewis Hamilton was flying beside him.

The pair came together, with Hamilton sustaining damage to his front wing.

Russell was apologetic over the team radio, saying he did not see his seven-time world champion teammate.

Former F1 driver turned pundit, Martin Brundle described the incident as “scary”.

“That could have gone aerial with Lewis’s car. Very, very scary indeed,” he said during the broadcast.

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