MELBOURNE, Australia — (AP) — McLaren locked up the front row in Melbourne for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix, having dominated its rivals, including Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari — whose drivers, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, will start from seventh and eighth on the grid.
Lando Norris set a searing final qualifying lap to secure pole position, his first at Melbourne's Albert Park, and milestone 10th overall, in front of his teammate Oscar Piastri, and a record Saturday crowd of 136,347 at Albert Park.
"Not a bad way to start the year, thanks everyone,” Norris said on his team radio shortly after the qualifying session ended ahead of Sunday’s opening race of the Formula 1 season.
Hamilton was circumspect about his qualifying finish.
“It isn’t quite where we wanted to be but overall I’m satisfied with the progress we have made over the past two days," Hamilton said. "We didn’t expect to be eight- or nine-tenths (of a second) behind pole but given this is a weekend of firsts for me, I didn’t underestimate how steep the learning curve would be.”
Norris went into Q3 on the back foot after his first lap was deleted for a track limit infringement at turn four, where he put all four wheels off the track. But he delivered when it mattered with his one run.
“It’s a tough one, because you want to take a lot of risks, especially on this track,” Norris said. “It’s a track where you’ve got to commit and you’ve got to know you know what your target is and once you’ve turned in, you’re kind of hoping for the best in a lot of cases.
“Obviously I took too many of my first (Q3) lap and got track limits, so I was in a difficult position with knowing how much risk I wanted to take, but I put it together well.”
And the Brit is confident he can maintain that form in the race.
“I think we were decent in Bahrain, and I think we’re going to be pretty good here," Norris said. “We were pretty good here last year and that was with a much worse car, so we’re going in with one target clearly, which is to have two cars at the top.”
Piastri was not unhappy to be second, having maximixed his lap, which enabled McLaren to lock out the front row for the second straight race, following 2024’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. But the Australian hasn’t given up on becoming the first Australian to win his home F1 Grand Prix.
“It would be really special to be able to achieve that,” Piastri said. “But, I’m not setting my sights too to firmly on that, we’ve got a lot of work to do (first) to try to maximize the race tomorrow – we (also) have to see what the weather does first.”
Day-long rain is in the forecast on Sunday.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen qualified third, shrugging off pre-season pace concerns for the team about its RB21 car. But he downplayed his chances of challenging the McLarens in the 58-lap race on a day when his new teammate Liam Lawson qualified well down in 18th, following a scrappy Q1 lap that questioned the team’s decision to replace Mexican Sergio Pérez for 2025.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t expect like any kind of miracles about it,” the Dutchman said. “I think it’s OK but it’s not on the same level (as the McLaren). But, I’ll just do my best, (and) see what happens.”
Mercedes’ hopes of a return to form were dashed with George Russell qualifying fourth, despite strong pace throughout practice. His 18-year-old rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who skipped F3 as part of his fast track through the junior categories, was a shock Q1 exit on his F1 debut and will start 16th.
Ferrari had expectations it could challenge for the title, with Leclerc starting seventh and Hamilton eighth — for a disappointing fourth row lockout that means it’ll be fighting for points, not podiums, should rain not materialize.
Racing Bulls, Red Bull’s second F1 team, continued to impress in qualifying — with Yuki Tsunoda securing fifth on the grid, which is his highest placing since Brazil 2024. Isack Hadjar, his French rookie teammate, put in a solid performance to start 11th.
Williams also showed its pre-season pace was real, after the British squad got both its drivers into the top-10 with Alex Albon sixth and defending Australian champion Carlos Sainz ninth.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly closed out the top-10 with his resurgent A525 car, three places ahead of his Aussie teammate Jack Doohan.
___
AP Formula 1: https://apnews.com/hub/formula-one