Formula 1 maestro and last year’s Australian Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen will start on pole for this year’s Albert Park race. Australia’s Oscar Piastri qualified in fifth spot.
Max Verstappen was out of sorts, grumpy, had damaged his car in practice and didn’t top a single practice session heading into qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park on Saturday.
“It was a bit unexpected today in qualifying, but very happy with Q3 – both of those laps were really nice and enjoyable,” Verstappen said. “To put it on the front row after leading through qualifying, I was almost not believing it, especially after how tough it’s been. It’s impossible to feel 100 per cent after spending 7-10 days in bed, just trying to recover.“I’m not in my most comfortable state when I’m driving out there, but I can get it done. As far as I can get it done without pain – a lot of discomfort and weird feelings but no pain – I can push flat-out.
In front of a Saturday crowd of 130,806 at Albert Park, Sainz defied his compromised preparation to lead the first two phases of qualifying as Verstappen fell two-tenths of a second behind after the first two parts of the session, where Hamilton was dumped out in 11th place for his worst qualifying showing in Melbourne since 2010.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Williams’ team principal James Vowles justified the decision to bench Sargeant for Albon while acknowledging his team’s failings in not having enough parts on hand to build a replacement chassis at the circuit. Piastri, who qualified in 16th place and scored his maiden F1 points in eighth one year ago in Melbourne, rued a “messy” final 12-minute stage of qualifying. He slipped behind Lando Norris after having the measure of his British teammate through the first two stages of the hour-long session, the 22-year-old finishing 0.257secs adrift of Norris and six-tenths of a second behind runaway pole-sitter Verstappen.
“We’ll see what we can do tomorrow from there … Lando has done a good job to get in front of Charles. We’ll see if we can stay there in the race, but trying to beat the Red Bulls and the Ferraris will be tough.”
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