it would have been one of the poles of our generation for sure, rivalling that of lewis hamilton in singapore a few years ago. it was world class. but it meant that he was pushing it to the absolute limits. and unfortunately, when you are doing that, sometimes it goes wrong and that s what happened. it was just a ragged lock up towards the end of the lap which saw him hit that barrier, and unfortunately, that was the end of his qualifying. otherwise, he would have been on pole by a really healthy margin. so verstappen goes from third. any word on the gearbox because that would have course then have an effect on where he is on the grid? yes, the hit meant he could have damaged his gearbox. the fia will release a document later on today to tell us of that is the case. if it is, he d go back five places and start p8. so it s a big difference and it will have a huge factor on this championship battle. the stakes are so high. notjust verstappen making mistakes. hamilton looked edgy at times