Verstappen collided with Leclerc and twice with Mercedes' George Russell after the safety car restart.
Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen will join the Australian on the front row.
Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were disqualified from the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix after their cars failed post-race checks on Sunday.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner said the 2025 F1 season was turning into a two-horse race between the McLaren drivers after his team had a home Austrian Grand Prix to forget on Sunday.
Verstappen starts new Red Bull era with Spa sprint win
Russell fastest in first Austrian GP practice as Dunne shines
Lando Norris put Formula One champions McLaren on pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix in track-record time on Saturday, with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc alongside on the front row for his home race.
Lewis Hamilton has expressed his total confidence in Ferrari after the Italian Formula One team's double disqualification in China.
Verstappen is third overall in the standings, 61 points behind Piastri who leads Norris by 15, and chasing his third win of the campaign to make up for retirement in Austria last weekend.
Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton were eighth and 10th in the season-opener in Australia and finished fifth and sixth in China two weeks ago before both cars were disqualified for technical infringements.
'Tomorrow's going to be a challenge, I've never driven this car in the rain.'
Australian Oscar Piastri won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Sunday to take the lead in the Formula One world championship
Film folk are busy travelling: Avneet enjoys the night life in London... Soha does yoga in the Maldives... Ibrahim lives his F1 dream...
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.
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.
Present rivalries and past collisions hang over Red Bull's home Austrian Grand Prix as Formula One braces for the next round of Max Verstappen v George Russell and more title-chasing drama at McLaren.
Formula One leader Oscar Piastri put his McLaren on pole position for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola on Saturday
George Russell put his Mercedes on pole position in Canada for the second year in a row on Saturday with Red Bull rival Max Verstappen alongside on the front row.
Hamilton, 40, is getting in some laps behind closed doors with teammate Charles Leclerc under rules that allow a limited amount of track mileage in older F1 cars.
Drivers returned to the pits, under a darkening sky, with engineers using torches in the garages before back-up generators came on and the session resumed about an hour later.
Lando Norris won the Austrian Grand Prix and revived his Formula One title bid after fending off championship-leading McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri under race-long pressure on Sunday.
F1 leader Oscar Piastri seized pole position from teammate and title rival Lando Norris by a hefty margin as dominant McLaren locked out the front row in Spanish Grand Prix.
George Russell took Mercedes' first win of the Formula One season in Canada on Sunday while McLaren's Oscar Piastri went 22 points clear in the championship after teammate Lando Norris smashed into him and retired.
Max Verstappen celebrated Red Bull's 400th Formula One race with a fourth win in a row at Imola on Sunday.
It was the first time in seven races that Ferrari had failed to get at least one of their cars into the top 10.
Days after the Red Bull driver and partner Kelly Piquet welcomed daughter Lily, his first child, the four-times champion set a blistering lap of one minute 26.204 seconds around the Hard Rock Stadium.
Seven-times World champion Lewis Hamilton appeared in Ferrari red for the first time outside of Italy as Formula One put on an unprecedented and spectacular 10-team season launch in front of 15,000 fans on Tuesday.
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 Oscar Piastri celebrated his 50th Formula One race with a pole-to-flag win in Bahrain on Sunday that sent him second overall.
Lando Norris lucked in to win a rain-hit and crash-strewn Miami Grand Prix sprint race in a McLaren one-two on Saturday.
Leclerc was 11 seconds clear with seven laps to go and 8.3 ahead with five remaining as the massed ranks of 'tifosi' willed him on.
Stewards at the Brazilian race summoned Leclerc on Friday, acting on a report from the governing FIA's media delegate and after reviewing a written transcript.
Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris topped the times for McLaren as four red flags, two caused by trackside grass fires, wreaked havoc with the second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix on Friday.
The win from fourth on the grid was Australian Oscar Piastri's third in a row, after Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and fourth of the season. McLaren have so far been beaten only once.
Carlos Sainz completed a double race distance for previously struggling Williams and pushed his Ferrari successor Lewis Hamilton off the top of the testing
But there were no bold statements on race day as he struggled to take a point and his team mate Charles Leclerc laboured to an eighth-place finish.
The 40-year-old, who won six of his world championships at Mercedes, also unveiled a new bright yellow helmet, as he continues his first official week at Ferrari which began at the team's headquarters on Monday.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri celebrated pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix, his 50th Formula One race, while dejected championship-leading teammate Lando Norris qualified sixth and said he had been "clueless on track".
World champion Max Verstappen put Red Bull on pole position for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in dramatic style on Saturday.
Bernie Ecclestone says his money is still on Red Bull's Max Verstappen to win the Formula One championship
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