We saw him start the weekend a little less smoothly than usual. In particular, he started the second free session half an hour late for technical reasons, which deprived him of a few long stints, always interesting for analyzing tire degradation. Then even in qualifying, when he first invoked understeer in Q1, without then managing to put “everything together” in Q2. And during this time, the Ferraris continued their “domination”, already displayed during free practice.
Until the last part of qualifying (Q3), when the Red Bull driver regained all his splendor to set two perfect times, even managing to be the only one to go below the 1min16 mark (1.15.915) and the first driver of F1 to exceed the 250 km/h average mark on a lap in Melbourne. Enough to give him a 35th pole position, his third of the season in three GPs.
Verstappen: “A bit unexpected”
“It was a little unexpected, but I am indeed satisfied with the two laps I posted in Q3,” he said after the effort, and before instilling the idea of a perhaps more indecisive race. than feared: “The Ferraris seemed fast and consistent over the long runs, we will have to watch that in the race. »
A great idea that we will try to hold on to on Sunday morning, since we will have to get up at dawn if we want to attend the start of the Grand Prix scheduled for 3 p.m. in Melbourne, or 5 a.m. back home. Opposite therefore, we will essentially have to count on Ferrari, on the front line thanks to a courageous Carlos Sainz, 2nd time (nearly 3 tenths) barely two weeks after his appendicitis operation, while Charles Leclerc did not have was able to realize the hopes placed on him when he missed his last lap to only rank 5th, behind Pérez (3rd) and Norris (4th). “When you’re chasing pole, it’s all a question of details and thousandths of a second,” noted Fred Vasseur on F1 TV. “So the line to go from hero to zero is very fine, and as it was quite windy today, perhaps that’s what gave Charles the feeling that the car was so difficult to drive, going from oversteer understeer. Let’s wait for the race, because we have been consistent since the start of the weekend on the long relays.”
Lewis Hamilton rate la Q3 !
A hope to which all fans of F1 and suspense have been clinging since the start of this new season. Apart from Ferrari, McLaren seems best placed to possibly show itself at the forefront: Piastri set the 6th fastest time, a good two tenths behind his teammate, and ahead of the Mercedes of Russell, the astonishing Tsunoda, and the Aston Martins of Stroll and Alonso.
Absent from this top 10: Lewis Hamilton, who once again suffered the domination of his teammate, and especially missed Q3, for the first time since 2010 in Australia. “George has been much more consistent than me since the start of this season at the wheel of this W15, of which I have difficulty unraveling all the mysteries,” concludes a Hamilton who is disillusioned to say the least, and no doubt increasingly impatient for change. combination next year.