AUSTRALIAN GP – Lando Norris beats Oscar Piastri by nearly a tenth to take pole for season opener
Lando Norris has beaten his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by nine hundredths to take pole position for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. The Englishman set a 15.096 putting him well ahead of Piastri and his expected championship rival Max Verstappen by nearly three-tenths of a second as McLaren locked out the front row.
McLaren went into qualifying as favourites but both drivers messed up their first run in Q3 by making mistakes, then Piastri on his final run went fastest followed by Norris both delivering strong final attempts to take a front-row lockout.
A good lap considering his first attempt was deleted for track limits at Turn Four. After taking pole, Norris admitted that had created what he described as “a difficult mindset” for the final run, but both blew away the opposition.
Norris was pleased by his performance, but his main concern was the race, for which rain is predicted. He said: “It’s the perfect way to start the year. Everyone at McLaren has done an amazing job to start with a one-two but it’s just qualifying, let’s see tomorrow, it’s going to be a tricky race but this is a good way to start. The car is extremely quick and when you put it together it’s unbelievable but it’s difficult to put together.
Verstappen did improve on his final attempt, but it was nowhere near enough to secure pole, a mistake at Clark (Turns Nine/Ten) sent him off into the gravel. But it was a big turnaround for the Red Bull driver through out testing and practice the team looked to be on the back foot and yesterday he was four-tenth off. The rest could not match the McLarens, as Verstappen’s Q3 run of two improvements left him adrift at the finish.
The four-time champion was just over a tenth faster than the Racing Bull of Yuki Tsunoda, while Alex Albon backed up Williams’s strong performance in testing by going sixth just over half a tenth behind the Japanese driver. Williams went into the season looking to consistently be fighting in the midfield and both cars made it through to Q3.
Pole sitter Norris said, “It’s the perfect way to start the year. A big congrats to the team, everyone has done an amazing job, to continue where we were at the end of last season and to start with a one-two. It’s just qualifying so let’s see what happens tomorrow, it’s going to be a tricky race.”
Piastri added “Pretty happy. It’s obviously a great to start the year on the front row – one position further back than I would’ve liked. It’s a great start to the year and great to have the team on the front row. We’ll reset and see what tomorrow has in store. Pretty happy with how qualifying went but not quite enough in Q3, but it’s the start of a long season.
Verstappen said, “It was good, yesterday was quite tough so for us to be in P3 today I will take that. The qualifying laps were really exciting and I think a lot of good grip around here and some fast corners so that’s always very fun in an F1 car.”
Ferrari appeared to be missing from the fight for pole, despite in practice and testing looking to be McLaren’s closest challenger. Charles Leclerc could only go seventh nearly seven-tenths off Norris and ahead of Hamilton by nearly a tenth. Hamilton was almost nine tenths off Norris’ pole time, and two-tenths back from his teammate, having survived a spin during Q2 to advance to the final stage of the session.
It has been over a year since Hamilton announced a move to Ferrari which has proved the story of the opening weekend. However, still trying to get to grips with the car and Ferrari’s mistakes left him unable to fight for a record-extending pole in Albert Park.
The seven-time world champion had to use an extra set of soft tyres after leaving himself vulnerable in Q1 and then highlighted his lack of comfort at the wheel of the SF-25 by spinning at the exit of Turn 11 in the latter stages of Q2. That extra set of softs would have been used for the final run in Q3.
He told Sky Sports, “I had a really good time out there today. Everything has been a first this weekend. My first practice sessions with Ferrari, my first qualifying. It’s been a lot of work to really adapt, this car is so much different here to what I’ve experienced in the past. But it’s been interesting. I definitely didn’t know that we’d be eight-tenths off today but there is a lot to dissect for sure.”
Pierre Gasly was ninth putting his Alpine seven thousandths behind Hamilton and ahead of Carlos Sainz by eight-hundredths of a second, both teams making a stronger start to the season than last year.
The top ten was once again tight with just under a second between Norris and his former teammate Sainz, though the top three were roughly half a second ahead of Russell.
Isack Hadjar missed out on his first Q3 by six hundredths putting his Racing Bull eleventh, with the sister Red Bull team also showing pace. The Frenchman failed to improve by enough to get out of the drop zone but did move ahead of the two Aston Martin’s, Fernando Alonso going three hundredths faster than Lance Stroll.
All three failed to improve on their final attempts, and Aston Martin said Alonso had damaged his floor following a mistake and going off into the gravel at Clark. A late improvement saw Jack Doohan go fourteenth the Alpine driver was four-tenths behind Stroll ahead of his home Grand Prix. But the son of five-time MotoGP champion Mick was over half a second ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto.
The Brazilian made a last-minute improvement on his final attempt in Q1, that saw him knock out Kimi Antonelli by nine thousandths. But the Italian appeared to drag the car along the ground which would have damaged performance and pace.
Liam Lawson had a thought Saturday, ahead of his defacto home Grand Prix in final practice he suffered a power unit issue and that cost him prep time. Then on his first run he looked to struggled for pace, then made errors on his next two attempts went off leaving him a quarter of a tenth behind Hulkenberg.
Haas had appeared to be able to fight into Q2, but Esteban Ocon could only manage nineteenth six hundredths behind Hulkenberg but teammate Ollie Bearman failed to set a time.
Looking to recover from a crash in practice and retiring in his last race in Sao Paulo, it was a early end to qualifying for Bearman. The gearbox failed on his first lap out of the pits in qualifying, after a a spin into the gravel in the final session cost him track time at the start of his first full season.