Verstappen secures pole position in Australia, with Russell in P2

Jan 04, 2024

Matt Gretton

Editor-in-Chief

Max Verstappen has qualified on pole position for the Australian Grand Prix weekend, despite it not being a smooth session throughout. His Red Bull teammate will start from the back of the grid after he ended up in the gravel. George Russell will start on the front row, with Lewis Hamilton in P3.

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Ferrari started the third and final qualifying session by saying rain was on the way. This caused a rush out of the pit lane, and all other teams followed. At the half-way point in Q3 less than one tenth seperated the top four drivers. Verstapen sat at the top, alongside Hamilton. Alonso and Russell were also embedded into the top four, with Ferrari missing out.

As the cars returned to the track for the final part of qualifying, Verstappen reported some issues with his car but managed to go half a second quicker to grab pole position. Mercedes surprised by beating Alonso's best time. In the end, Russell was two tenths down on Verstappen.

Drivers and teams opted for the same tactics by staying out on track longer and recording multiple laps. At the halfway stage, Tsunoda, Gasly, Magnussen, De Vries and Norris sat in the drop zone. The McLaren driver had ran across the gravel on his quickest lap.

The field was tightly packed with just a tenth seperating the majority of drivers. Gasly managed to escape, and swapped with his Alpine teammate Ocon.

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Qualifying started with a slightly damp circuit. There was a rush out of the pitlane but most of the big names stayed in the garage. With 11 minutes left on the clock, Perez ran wide and beached his RB19 in the gravel. Following on from his nightmare in FP3 earlier in the day, Perez will start from the back of the grid. It seemed as though there was an issue on the Red Bull car.

In a unique situation, multiple laps were driven by most drivers. The tyre heat built up as the laps went in and with low tyre degrdation, it wasn't an issue to keeping running and running. Oscar Piastri, in his first home race, failed to reach Q2. He was joined in the drop zone with Perez, Zhou, Sargeant and Bottas.

OUT - P20 Perez, P19 Bottas, P18 Sargeant, P17 Zhou, P16 Piastri

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