Max Verstappen achieves his first Australian Grand Prix pole position in Albert Park while the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton will line up second and third on the grid.
After a light rain shower had hit the Melbourne circuit just ahead of the one-hour session getting underway and with the C4 Pirelli softs holding on for multiple laps but requiring multiple warm-ups to be at their best, the Australian crowd was treated to an action-packed qualifying.
After being fuelled to run for huge chunks of laps at a time in Q1 and Q3, most of the Q3 runners opted for two new tyre runs of five laps, with two fliers.
Verstappen had led the way throughout but was reporting possible issues with his RB19’s battery and transmission when he blasted in a one minute, 16.732 seconds to secure pole with a few seconds left on the clock.
That knocked back Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who was shuffled back to fourth position by the last-gasp efforts of Russell and Hamilton.
The Mercedes driver slotted in with one minute, 17.968 seconds as the only other driver to join Verstappen under the one minute, 17 seconds bracket, with his teammate slightly adrift having had to jockey for position with Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg through the final corners on their last warm-up tours.
Behind Alonso came his Spanish compatriot Carlos Sainz for Ferrari, with Lance Stroll sixth for Aston Martin and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari next up.
Leclerc put in his best time well ahead of the chequered flag and with enough time to complete a final run in Q3 and although he set a personal best one minute, 17.369 seconds he could not climb further ahead.
Alex Albon gave Williams its best qualifying of 2023 so far in eighth position – pitting ahead of his Q3 rivals completing the last laps in the final minutes – with Pierre Gasly and Hulkenberg completing the top ten.
Esteban Ocon missed a personal best on his final Q2 flier after encountering traffic late on in the final sector and was knocked out behind Albon by just 0.007 seconds, the Williams driver abandoning his final lap in the middle segment after clipping the Turn 11 apex kerb and nearly losing the rear of his car.
Also knocked out in Q2 were Yuki Tsunoda, Lando Norris and Kevin Magnussen, who all set their best laps at the end.
Nyck de Vries did not do likewise as he was eliminated in P15 for AlphaTauri, after he had escaped Q1 for the first time in his debut season with the Red Bull sister squad.
In Q1, Sergio Perez locked up heading into the tight, Turn 3 right-hander on his first flying lap and slid straight off the road and into the gravel trap he had also visited in FP1 and FP3.
The Jeddah Grand Prix winner skated across the gravel but as he turned right and tried to manoeuvre his way out he became stuck at the edge next to a muddy access road close to the barrier, where Checo fumed he had suffered the “same issue” as earlier in the weekend.
This is possibly referring to the braking problem Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said both of his charges were grappling with earlier in the Australian Grand Prix weekend.
After an eight-minute delay, the opening segment resumed, with the pack fuelled to run throughout.
Eliminated alongside Perez were home hero Oscar Piastri, who set a personal best on his final flier but it was not good enough to dislodge Tsunoda ahead, Zhou Guanyu, Logan Sargeant and Valtteri Bottas.
Sargeant had a spin at the start of Q1 when he put his right-side wheels on the still slippery exiting the final corner and he pirouetted around diving back into the pits.
So an exciting race in Albert Park in store with the four champions in the first two rows on the grid. Bring on the race!
Australian Grand Prix, qualifying results:
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:16.732
2 George Russell Mercedes 1:16.968
3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:17.104
4 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:17.139
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:17.270
6 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:17.308
7 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:17.369
8 Alex Albon Williams 1:17.609
9 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:17.675
10 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 1:17.735
11 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1:17.768
12 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 1:18.099
13 Lando Norris McLaren 1:18.119
14 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:18.129
15 Nyck de Vries AlphaTauri 1:18.335
16 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:18.517
17 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo 1:18.540
18 Logan Sargeant Williams 1:18.557
19 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo 1:18.714
20 Sergio Perez Red Bull No time
Australian Grand Prix qualifying review as reported by Formula1.com.
Max Verstappen drew level with Fernando Alonso by taking his 22nd career pole position in qualifying for the 2023 Australian Grand Prix – while Mercedes’ George Russell qualified second and Sergio Perez ended up 20th after a Q1 crash.
Verstappen set a time of 1m 16.732s to take his first Australian Grand Prix pole position ahead of Russell, who was 0.236s off in Q3. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton ended up third on the grid, 0.372s off the pace, while Fernando Alonso was 0.407s off the pace in P4.
Carlos Sainz qualified fifth for Ferrari in front of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, while Charles Leclerc struggled on the way to P7.
Alex Albon managed a stellar P8 for Williams to leave Alpine’s Pierre Gasly ninth and Nico Hulkenberg 10th for Haas.
Yellow flags flew in Q1 – where the official risk of rain was 90% – as Logan Sargeant went off track, just before Perez brought out red flags by locking up and beaching his Red Bull in the Turn 3 gravel having struggled throughout FP3. Conditions stayed dry and Verstappen set the fastest time in Q1 ahead of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
In Q2, Verstappen continued his run to top the session ahead of Alonso, which set up a nail-biting Q3 where Verstappen took provisional pole in Q3 but reported gearshift and battery issues. Despite that, he improved to cement pole with a blistering effort.
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was caught in traffic and eliminated from Q2 in P11, 0.08s off safety, while Yuki Tsunoda was visibly annoyed at being held up in the pit lane weighbridge before he was eliminated in P12 for AlphaTauri.
McLaren’s Lando Norris made a brace of mistakes in Q2 and finished P13 ahead of Haas’s Kevin Magnuseen, while Nyck de Vries finished P15 in qualifying for AlphaTauri.
Home hero Oscar Piastri was 0.047s off safety in Q1 as the McLaren driver qualified 16th ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu and Williams’ Sargeant in P18. Valtteri Bottas hit traffic in Q1 and qualified 19th, leaving Perez 20th after his Q1 excursion.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.verstappen-claims-first-ever-melbourne-pole-as-russell-bags-front-row-start.3IxM1nwxybesiW95o5C1sE.html
George Russell says Mercedes must “go for it” in an audacious attempt to beat Max Verstappen’s dominant Red Bull in Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix after nearly matching it in qualifying.
Russell ended up just 0.236s behind Verstappen in Q3 at Albert Park, with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton third in the second Mercedes, a somewhat surprise result for the Black Arrows squad after its difficult start to the new campaign and having been 0.6s off the pace in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Although Verstappen heads into Sunday’s race as the heavy favourite for victory, Russell indicated that after its strong qualifying result, Mercedes’ expectations of a successful race could be altered given the chance to attack the polesitter early-on.
“We’ve got to go for it, haven’t we?” Russell said in the post-qualifying press conference in Melbourne. “We’ve got to go for the win.
“Max is going to be extremely fast, there’s no hiding that. I think it’s difficult to overtake around this circuit, so the start, lap one, is going to be vital.
“But the Red Bull has extraordinary top speed, so it’s going to be very difficult to fight with Max.
“But, let’s see how we get on. We’ve got to do our race. But if the opportunity is there, we’ll go for it.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/russell-mercedes-to-go-for-it-attempting-to-beat-verstappen-in-australian-gp/10451500/
Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff has cautioned that the team shouldn’t swing towards “exuberance” after a strong qualifying performance at the Australian GP.
George Russell and Lewis Hamilton will start second and third in Melbourne, helped by a disastrous qualifying session for Red Bull’s Sergio Perez that left the Mexican in 20th and last place on the grid.
The performance represents a clear step forward after the first two races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which led the team to investigate a change of car concept.
Wolff stressed that despite finding some extra speed from the W14 this weekend, the team should not lose sight of the bigger picture and should continue to push on with the planned change in order to achieve longer-term gains.
“I think we need to be careful not to oscillate between mania and depression, but keep the thinking rational,” said Wolff.
“And what we’ve seen today is that there’s a lot of potential unlocking within the car, that’s clear, but we need to take the right decisions for the long term.
“And in that respect, we will continue to race the best possible package that we have. And whether that has a narrow body or wide body is irrelevant. We just need to have more downforce in the sweet spot of the car.”
Pressed on whether or not he stood by the plan to switch concepts, he warned that the next race could go easily the other way.
“This is exactly the swings that we must avoid,” he said. “Because obviously you’re delivering such a good qualifying today and it swings into exuberance, and we’re like okay everything we’ve thought was the wrong thing, let’s continue to develop the car and then when the next bad result you think it the other way around.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/wolff-cautions-against-mercedes-exuberance-after-strong-f1-qualifying/10451523/
Sergio Perez says he was “a passenger” in his Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix Q1 exit, as an unresolved FP3 braking issue caused his Red Bull’s gravelly Turn 3 off.
Perez had a disrupted FP3 as he joined the session 20 minutes late, and he ended up over half a second down on team-mate Max Verstappen after two push laps were wrecked by locking up under braking.
Speaking after qualifying, Perez explained that “we thought we fixed that” prior to qualifying, only for his RB19 to skate into the gravel on his first push lap in Q1 at Turn 3 after locking his right-front wheel.
The Mexican was unable to rejoin the circuit and without setting a time he will start last for tomorrow’s grand prix while Verstappen claimed pole.
Perez said that the problem related to the brake balance moving “quite far forwards as soon as I was braking”.
“We had a bit of a technical issue from FP3 and we thought we fixed that, but we obviously didn’t,” he said when asked to explain his troubles by Motorsport.com.
“It was very difficult to do anything out there, just braking. I became a passenger as soon as I touched the brake.
“It’s something that is moving the brake balance quite far forwards on the braking.
“I just hope that we are able to fix it as a team tomorrow and be able to race and minimise the damage.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/perez-explains-brake-problem-that-left-him-a-passenger-in-australian-gp-q1/10451447/
Fernando Alonso thinks his fourth place in Q3 for Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix was his “best qualifying of the three” in 2023 despite being the Aston Martin driver behind both Mercedes cars.
With the Red Bull of Sergio Perez eliminated in Q1, Alonso was a favourite to qualify on the front row for Sunday’s Melbourne race alongside overwhelming favourite Max Verstappen, who duly took pole.
But behind the world champion, Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton proved the surprise package of qualifying by beating Alonso to second and third respectively.
Despite being demoted to fourth, Alonso felt Melbourne was Aston Martin’s best qualifying performance yet this season because the gap to polesitter Verstappen was the smallest it has been so far.
“In terms of performance, arguably, this was the best qualifying for us of the three,” Alonso said when quizzed by Motorsport.com/Autosport on his Albert Park performance.
“It’s the closest we’ve been to pole position, so I feel fast and the car is easy to drive and I enjoy it.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alonso-melbourne-f1-best-qualifying-of-2023-despite-being-behind-mercedes/10451444/