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Byron, who won the pole for this race a year ago, was among the last cars to complete laps at the end of 1½ hours of practice and with time already expired registered the fastest average lap speed of the day at 94.415 mph.Teams were split into two groups and each group given a pair of 20-minute sessions on the track since it’s the first road course race of the season with NASCAR’s new aero …Keep reading
Heading into this season, the expectation was that a strong campaign for Ricciardo would make him the favourite to replace out-of-contract Sergio Perez alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull in 2025.However, the Australian has been outqualified on all three occasions so far in 2024 by RB team-mate Tsunoda – who also pipped him in the one-lap head-to-head in three of the final five races of last …Keep reading
Zhou qualified last at Albert Park on Saturday after he broke the left-hand side of his front wing on the Turn 10 exit kerbs on his final flyer, with the main plane cracking and the endplate eventually breaking off.At the time, Zhou was on course to be a contender for Q2, running at a similar pace to team-mate Valtteri Bottas who advanced.Instead, the Chinese driver qualified 19th and last …Keep reading
Norris and Oscar Piastri qualified fourth and sixth respectively, but both will move up a spot after a three-place grid penalty for third-fastest Sergio Perez.While Piastri couldn’t wring an optimal lap out of his MCL38 in Q3, Norris’ four-tenth gap to Red Bull”s polesitter Max Verstappen is the smallest it has been this year, while he was only a tenth and a half slower than Carlos Sainz in the …Keep reading
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will start the race from pole position after upsetting Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in Saturday’s qualifying.Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez was due to line up third but a three-place penalty for impeding Nico Hulkenberg in Q1 leaves him sixth on the grid.This means McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will take the start from third and fifth respectively, with …Keep reading
Ricciardo was initially 12th in Q1 and thus safely through to Q2 before losing his lap time to a track limits offence, which dropped him down to 18th.However, even without the penalty he couldn’t match the pace of Tsunoda, who progressed through the three sessions to qualify eighth.The Australian, outqualified by his team-mate in every event so far this year, admitted he was left “puzzled” at his …Keep reading
The seven-time F1 world champion was eliminated in Q2 ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, having previously scored eight pole positions in Melbourne. He missed out on the top 10 shootout to team-mate George Russell by 0.05 seconds.Hamilton speculated the “spike” of promise shown in final practice earlier on Saturday had been undone by increased winds for qualifying that put the W15 challenger on a …Keep reading
Albon’s own car was badly damaged in a crash in opening practice on Friday, and he didn’t take part in FP2.With no spare chassis on hand, team principal James Vowles made the call for Albon to take over the sole remaining healthy chassis for Saturday, meaning American Sargeant would miss the remainder of the weekend. Albon was an impressive seventh in Q1 and then secured 12th in Q2, a place …Keep reading
Perez was on a warm-up lap for his first Q1 run when a hotlapping Hulkenberg encountered him in the middle of the racing line on Turn 13, Albert Park’s slow penultimate left-hander.The Mexican was only told very late by his race engineer that the Haas driver was behind him, with the focus instead being on preparing his flying lap.Perez was summoned by the stewards after qualifying, in which he …Keep reading
Having looked good in Friday’s practice, Leclerc was less happy in Saturday’s FP3 session, and in qualifying he struggled with his front tyres.He was fourth in Q1 and second in Q2, but tried a front wing change for his final run in Q3 in an attempt to find more performance.Leclerc was left a frustrated fifth after the “very aggressive” wing adjustment failed to pay off.”To be honest, I think it’s …Keep reading