Max Verstappen fended off Carlos Sainz to start the season with three poles in a row in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver was nearly two tenths faster than his former teammate, Sainz making a strong bounce back after missing the last race in Jeddah.
Verstappen set a 15.915 to deny Sainz the chance to top all three parts of qualifying. Going into qualifying, the three-time champion had looked out of place he hadn’t topped any session going into Q3, before pulling it out the bag going fastest on both his runs in the final session.
The Dutchman and Red Bull aren’t easily beaten as Verstappen continued his start to the season, an even more dominant style than his record-breaking 2023. Both his laps in Q3 would have been good enough for pole, as he took his third pole in three races as he seeks a record equalling tenth win in a row.
For Sainz, it was a decent bounce back following an operation for appendicitis that forced him to miss the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, as he bounced back strongly splitting the Red Bull’s going nearly a tenth faster than Sergio Perez.
Perez was just over three and a half tenths behind Verstappen but dropped to sixth following a three-place grid drop for impeding the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg in Q1.
Ferrari throughout practice on Friday looked to have matched or be slightly ahead of Red Bull but it always looked as if it if would be tough to beat Verstappen. Sainz also suspects that Ferrari “might have a chance” to end the Dutchman’s long winning run if they can execute Sunday’s 58-lap race to perfection from the front row.
Verstappen said, “A bit unexpected in qualifying today but very happy with Q3. Both of those laps felt very nice. Bit of a tricky weekend but we managed to be there at the end.
Red Bull typically have an even greater advantage in the race than in qualifying but Ferrari’s long run in second practice looked strong and Verstappen said he was expecting a challenge in the race. Adding, “They seem very quick also in the long runs so a bit of a question mark also for tomorrow but that makes it interesting.”
It was a momentous performance from Sainz, in remarkable form considering he was just two weeks out from abdominal surgery. He said, “It has been a tough couple of weeks, a lot of days in bed, waiting to see if I could be here today. To make it this weekend and put it on the front row after leading all the way through qualifying, I almost could not believe it.”
Lando Norris was fourth, the McLaren driver going four hundredths behind Perez and ahead of Charles Leclerc by over a tenth. Ferrari looked competitive on Friday, but the Monacan admitted the car had gone away from him throughout FP3 and qualifying.
The car developed understeer leading to a “messy” qualifying as a result, adding too much front wing for the final run and generating oversteer instead. But Leclerc did manage to spilt the McLarens as he went a tenth and a half faster than Oscar Piastri.
Piastri the highest Australian on the grid went sixth on the grid for his home Grand Prix, as he was a tenth and a half faster than George Russell. Mercedes had looked to struggle all weekend and once again qualifying exposed the weaknesses of the W15, a year ago Russell had been third, but the Englishman was eight tenths off pole.
Eight-time pole sitter Lewis Hamilton missed out on Q3 by seven hundredths after he was knocked out by Lance Stroll with Russell only a hundredth faster to get through to Q3. Stroll beat his Aston Martin teammate Fernando Alonso by almost half a second to complete the top ten.
Both Mercedes drivers insist the car has potential, but after three races it remains stubbornly elusive, and Mercedes still have plenty of work to do. They are struggling to understand the wild fluctuations in performance.
They went from fourth and fifth in FP3 within a tenth of Leclerc’s session toping time at lunchtime, but when it mattered in qualifying to seventh and eleventh.
A frustrated Hamilton, who has claimed a record eight poles at Albert Park and who last started outside the top 10 at the circuit when a McLaren driver in 2010, admitted to Sky Sports, “The inconsistency within the car, it really messes with the mind. But George did a good job. It is what it is. I just have to try and do a better job [in the race].”
Russell finished the right side of the cut line for Q3 by only six hundredths from Hamilton, but that was enough to ensure that, as was the case this time last year, he goes 3-0 up on the seven-time champion in qualifying at the start of the new season.
He added “From my side, I feel a bit more confidence and consistency with the car. We know we need to improve in the high-speed corners and on this track there are quite a few of those.”
“I think we will be in a much better place tomorrow when we have more fuel in the car and the pace is a little slower from everybody. But this circuit is not playing to our strengths.”
Alonso aborted his first run of the session after skipping across the gravel at Turn Six, and couldn’t find much in the way of pace in his final lap. While Stroll on his last attempt in Q2 knocked out Hamilton, as the Mercedes couldn’t improve on his last attempt.
Lacking pace in the high-speed corners in Jeddah, Mercedes have spent the time between the two races trying to understand why their car was not behaving as expected. But little progress appears to have been made. Last year, Russell was on the front row with Verstappen, but this time he was more than eight-tenths off the pace.
Alex Albon, the only Williams to take part in this race, after he crashed heavily in Friday’s opening practice session and caused excessive damage to his original chassis, was just under two-tenths faster than Valtteri Bottas.
But with Albon, the team’s senior and recognised lead driver, the Williams chose to keep the Thai driver in the field for the remainder of the weekend with Logan Sargeant withdrawn instead and his teammate taking over his car. Kevin Magnussen was over a tenth ahead of Esteban Ocon.
Ocon had split the two Haas’s after Nico Hulkenberg missed out by three and a half tenths. Ocon survived a bang with the wall at Stewart, Turn Twelve, but couldn’t go better than fifteenth.
Pierre Gasly was six thousandths behind the Haas going a tenth faster than Daniel Ricciardo. Ricciardo the big shock the Perth born driver was knocked out in Q1 after his fastest time which would have got him safely through to Q2 in twelfth was deleted for track limits dropping him to eighteenth.
Guanyu Zhou completed the fields after he lost elements from his front wind and that lead to both a loss of time leaving him a tenth behind Ricciardo.
