F1 Australian GP: Russell takes pole from Antonelli as Verstappen crashes out

George Russell took a dominant pole position at Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix, with nobody competitive enough to challenge Mercedes in Melbourne.

Russell topped all three segments and led team-mate Kimi Antonelli by three tenths in Q3, with third-placed Isack Hadjar eight tenths slower; Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri made up the top five.

Max Verstappen’s qualifying session ended prematurely when he crashed out on his very first flying lap.

Q1 was red-flagged Verstappen’s accident occurred, with under eight minutes remaining. The four-time world champion spun at high speed when braking for Turn 1, with his rear wheels presumably locking.

At that moment, Russell led the classification by nearly four tenths with a 1m19.840s; his Mercedes team-mate Antonelli was in the drop zone after his FP3 crash, joined by Verstappen, Carlos Sainz – who had a technical issue in FP3 – and Lance Stroll, amid Aston Martin’s dire engine hardship. None of the four had a lap time on the board; they were led by the Cadillacs, who were also at risk in 17th and 18th, and were one second slower than Aston’s Alonso in 16th.

As Russell improved to a 1m19.507s, Antonelli easily made it to Q2, leaving Franco Colapinto on the brink of elimination. However, a last-ditch improvement by the Argentine ended Alonso’s – and Aston Martin’s – session by a substantial margin.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

Russell set the pace in Q2 again with the first 1m18s lap of the weekend, namely a 1m18.934s, leading Piastri by 0.648s; with five minutes remaining, Pierre Gasly, Oliver Bearman, Alex Albon, Nico Hulkenberg, Colapinto and Lewis Hamilton were in the drop zone; the seven-time world champion had gone fastest in the first sector but backed out of his lap.

Russell went on to set the only other 1m18s lap in that segment, though he failed to improve on his benchmark by half a tenth; he still led everyone else by four tenths. Further back, Hamilton jumped to seventh, while Esteban Ocon’s lack of progress saw him demoted to 13th. Gasly and Albon also failed to improve, with the Thai driver running wide in Turn 1.

Gabriel Bortoleto narrowly made it through for Audi, but he stopped with a technical issue at pit entry, meaning only nine cars took part in Q3 – the Mercedes, Ferraris, McLarens, Racing Bulls, and Hadjar’s Red Bull.

The top-10 shootout was red-flagged early on after a cooling fan was left on Antonelli’s car. Part of it flew away in the Turn 1 braking zone, while another section of the fan was dislodged on the straight towards Turn 3; Lando Norris’s left-hand wheel ran over the latter, and it disintegrated. Antonelli is under investigation over his car being released in an unsafe condition.

Russell’s first Q3 attempt was slower than both his Q2 markers, a 1m19.084s, but he still was half a second faster than Norris and Hadjar, with Leclerc, Piastri and Hamilton more than a second off. Antonelli ran wide into the Turn 3 gravel trap and backed out.

The Italian sophomore, however, set a 1m18.811s on his last lap – but Russell reigned supreme and went three tenths faster in 1m18.518s.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

Hadjar took third for Red Bull in 1m19.303s but was nearly eight tenths away; he narrowly outpaced Leclerc and Piastri, with Norris and Hamilton just under a second off pole position.

Racing Bulls duo Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad battled for eighth position, with the Kiwi coming out on top as the rookie lost a second in sector two.

F1 Australian GP - Qualifying results

Q3

All Stats

 

Cla	Driver	#		Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Interval	Tyres	km/h
1	G. Russell Mercedes	63		Mercedes	Mercedes	22	1'18.518		S	241.992
2	A. Antonelli Mercedes	12		Mercedes	Mercedes	18	+0.293 1'18.811	0.293	S	241.093
3	I. Hadjar Red Bull Racing	6		Red Bull	Red Bull	19	+0.785 1'19.303	0.492	S	239.597
4	C. Leclerc Ferrari	16		Ferrari	Ferrari	24	+0.809 1'19.327	0.024	S	239.525
5	O. Piastri McLaren	81		McLaren	Mercedes	26	+0.862 1'19.380	0.053	S	239.365
6	L. Norris McLaren	1		McLaren	Mercedes	26	+0.957 1'19.475	0.095	S	239.078
7	L. Hamilton Ferrari	44		Ferrari	Ferrari	25	+0.960 1'19.478	0.003	S	239.069
8	L. Lawson Racing Bulls	30		RB	Red Bull	24	+1.476 1'19.994	0.516	S	237.527
9	A. Lindblad Racing Bulls	41		RB	Red Bull	25	+2.729 1'21.247	1.253	S	233.864
10	G. Bortoleto Audi	5		Audi	Audi	14			S
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