Team boss Christian Horner said Verstappen's lap of one minute 22.109 seconds was one of his best of the year and the Dutch driver sounded remarkably relaxed given the amount of pressure on him.
Red Bull's Formula One championship leader Max Verstappen won the Hungarian Grand Prix from 10th on the starting grid on Sunday as Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc suffered another strategy nightmare.
Australian Piastri, winner of four of the last five races, lapped the Imola circuit with a fastest time of one minute 16.545 seconds on the softest tyre compound with Norris 0.032 slower on a sunny afternoon.
Max Verstappen will have his first shot at clinching the Formula One title in Saudi Arabia in two weeks' time but Red Bull's championship leader could also see his advantage disappear entirely.
IMAGES from the Belgian F1 Grand Prix
Yuki Tsunoda said he has not been offered any guarantees about how long he will stay at Red Bull
Formula One world champion Max Verstappen won the inaugural Miami Grand Prix for Red Bull on Sunday, slashing Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc's overall lead from 27 to 19 points after five races.
World champion Max Verstappen took maximum points from Formula One's Imola sprint weekend, leading a Red Bull one-two on Sunday as Ferrari's homecoming turned sour for overall leader Charles Leclerc and his Italian team.
McLaren's Australian Daniel Ricciardo will join the Dutch 23-year-old on the front row for the first time since the pair were team mates at Red Bull in 2018.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen won a chaotic and crash-halted Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola on Sunday with Lewis Hamilton second for Mercedes and retaining the lead in the championship by a single point.
Hamilton decided to take matters into his own hands and pass several cars ahead of him, without gaining anything as Verstappen's time stood the test.
Russell fastest in first Austrian GP practice as Dunne shines
Max Verstappen put Red Bull on pole position for Formula One's season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday, with seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton alongside on the front row for Mercedes.
Formula One leader Max Verstappen handed his Red Bull team a home pole position for Saturday's sprint race at the Austrian Grand Prix after Mercedes rivals Lewis Hamilton and George Russell crashed in qualifying.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri seized the first proper pole position of his Formula One career at the Chinese Grand Prix on Saturday with the fastest lap yet around the Shanghai International Circuit.
Red Bull's double World champion Max Verstappen won the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday to set a Formula One record of 14 victories from a single season, as well as the most points scored.
Leclerc had seized the lead at the start, and held it through an initial safety car period, before Verstappen made up for his poor getaway and passed the Monegasque -- whose tyres were fading fast -- with a late move around the outside.
Red Bull dropped Daniil Kvyat to sister team Toro Rosso following his disastrous weekend at the Russian Grand Prix and promoted Max Verstappen as his replacement ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.
IMAGES from the Azerbaijan F1 Grand Prix held at Baku City Circuit on Sunday
Max Verstappen won the season-ending Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix from pole position for Red Bull on Sunday.
Norris's teammate Oscar Piastri, who spun off and finished ninth in his home race last Sunday after starting on the front row and challenging for the lead, has another good chance to rev up his season.
Lewis Hamilton will launch his bid to win the drivers' championship at a third F1 team when he makes his much-anticipated debut for Ferrari in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Dutch Formula One driver Max Verstappen collected two special awards for the second year in a row at the International Automobile Federation (FIA)'s gala prize-giving ceremony on Friday.
Ferrari's Carlos Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday in a triumphant return two weeks after appendicitis surgery as Red Bull's World champion Max Verstappen suffered his first retirement in two years.
Hamilton held on for fourth, but slipped from 18 to 32 points behind Verstappen in the championship standings.
Carlos Sainz lapped Monza's "Temple of Speed" with a fastest time of one minute 20.294 seconds, 0.013 quicker than Max Verstappen's final flying lap.
Verstappen goes into the Formula One record books as the pole setter for the weekend, however, regardless of where he starts on Sunday.
The 18-year-old, preparing for only his sixth Grand Prix weekend, lapped with a best time of one minute 26.482 seconds to pip McLaren's championship leader Oscar Piastri by 0.045 seconds.
Lando Norris won his home British Grand Prix for the first time and shed tears of joy while McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri finished second
Verstappen leads seven times world champion Hamilton by six points with six races remaining and the pole at Austin's Circuit of the Americas was the ninth of the season for the Dutch 24-year-old -- and eighth in the last 11 races.
Max Verstappen put his Red Bull on pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton celebrated his first Formula One win for Ferrari after leading a Chinese Grand Prix sprint from start to finish in only his second race for the Italian team on Saturday.
McLaren's Formula One leader Lando Norris called himself an idiot after crashing in Saudi Arabian Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday, and he stuck by the self-criticism when talking to reporters afterwards.
Ferrari's underwhelming pace was a surprise to their rivals and to Hamilton, whose quickest lap in the final qualifying session (Q3) was nearly nine-tenths of a second slower than Norris's.
Max Verstappen was compared to Formula One greats Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher on Sunday after the Dutch teenager's sensational drive to third place in a wet and chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix. Even father and former racer Jos, the 19-year-old Red Bull driver's biggest fan and fiercest critic, was astonished. "What Max showed here today was really special," he said of a race likely to go down in the sport's annals as one for the ages. In the last 15 laps, after a change to extreme wet tyres, Verstappen passed more than half the starting grid as he went from 16th place to the podium.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen qualified comfortably faster but dropped five places for a gearbox change.
Australian driver Oscar Piastri, 23, emerged victorious in his first ever Formula One race at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Factbox on Dutch driver Max Verstappen, who became Formula One's youngest race winner, aged 18, at the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.
Charles Leclerc stunned favourites McLaren by seizing pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday as Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton described himself as useless and suggested he should be replaced.
Dutch rookie Max Verstappen, signed controversially as a 16-year-old by Toro Rosso, has swept a hat-trick of awards after confounding his critics in an impressive debut Formula One season.
