The first qualifying is in the bag, and as many of us predicted, it’s a papaya lockout that dominates Australia, with Lando Norris securing pole position a mere 0.084s ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri, who will line up second on the grid.
Max Verstappen seemed a little surprised to be up in 3rd place and the second row of the grid, but it once again represents a turn-around to Red Bull’s Friday performances that we saw last year, where the sim and the overnight data crunching, plus the driving of Max, brings them back into contention when it matters. George Russell is another driver who will be happy with P4. A lot of the talk has been about how the Mercedes W16 handles the heat, a known issue that its predecessor, the W15, suffered from, but so far, so good for one side of the Mercedes garage.
5th place went to Yuki Tsunoda, the highest position of a Red Bull driver behind Max, in the sister VCARB team, looking to prove a point about being overlooked for the main Red Bull seat, he grabbed a handy tow of Norris to propel him forward, both on and off the track. He will be joined on the grid in 6th by Alex Albon, a driver under pressure since the arrival of Carlos Sainz, capitalising on a good set-up as well as an extra set of tyres for qualifying, continuing the Williams resurgence and backing up that testing and free practice picture.
7th and 8th were not where we were expecting the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc (7th) and Lewis Hamilton (8th). Charles, talking in post-qualifying about how the car was difficult to handle, with the data showing us that sector 3 seems to be a big issue for the team. Lewis may be a little fortunate to be here given what happened in Q2. A spin for him, destroying a lot of lap times for other drivers, but he will be happy to only be a tenth off his teammate in qualifying, given how many have been reporting it will take a while to get close to his teammate.
The top ten is completed by Pierre Gasly in p9 and Carlos Sainz in P10. Alpine is quietly carrying on their rebuilding of last year with a strong performance from Pierre, which looks light years away from where the team started 2024 off. Carlos, whilst happy to be in the top ten, will be disappointed to miss out on beating Alex considering being the lead car all weekend in practice, but still a double top ten for Williams is a dream start for the team.
Outside the top ten, Isack Hadjar, the best of the rookies, managed to continue that form we have seen this weekend with P11. He will be joined by Fernando Alonso in P12, who will be hoping the AMR 25 is better in race trim than what it is in qualifying pace.
P13: Lance Stroll, once again alongside his teammate, whilst Jack Doohan will be alongside him after being unlucky in Q2, getting caught up in the Lewis spin, whilst improving his time, meaning it was P14 for the Aussie in his home race.
P15 and P16 were rookie lockouts, and neither of them really expected to be there. Gabriel Bortoleto, clearly with a point to prove after the comments made by Helmut Marko, did a great job out qualifying his experienced teammate and also did a great job keeping his Sauber out of the wall in Q2 after a snap sent it hurtling towards the barriers. P16 is occupied by Kimi Räikkönen, who, after going wide and picking up floor damage, just missed out on Q2 and will be bitterly disappointed to be here. A strong car and repaired floor, along with a mixed weather forecast, does give some hope that he will be able to climb the grid come Sunday.
Niko Hulkenberg P17 is where many had expected Sauber to be, and if it hadn’t been for the performance of his rookie teammate, then this would probably have been seen as a good position for him. One driver not in a good position on row 9 alongside him is Liam Lawson, who lines up in P18. The only driver, believe it or not, to have not driven this track in any form before this weekend seems to be doing the same with a limited run in FP3 after an electrical issue. He’s got it all to do from towards the back of the grid, and Red Bull will be hoping that, similar to Antonelli, the better set-up of the car will move him back up on a track where overtaking is possible.
And finally, P19 and P20 go to Haas, who have looked off the pace all weekend. Esteban Ocon finished bottom of the timing sheets after teammate Oliver Bearman did not set a time due to issues with the new gearbox in that Haas means they have it all to do tomorrow. f1 qualifying grand prix qualifying f1 qualifying results