By Joe Murphy
Max Verstappen made it a season-opening hat trick when he claimed his third successive pole position at Albert Park on Saturday.
The Dutchman narrowly held off an on-form Carlos Sainz to take P1, with the other Red Bull car having to settle for third position. McLaren firmly established themselves as the third quickest team with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finishing well, with Charles Leclerc (who aborted his final flying lap) sandwiched in the middle. After a subsequent three place penalty, Perez will now start sixth in a blow for Red Bull.
Yuki Tsunoda arguably produced the performance of the the sessions getting his car into the top ten, alongside the two Aston Martin drivers.
It was a miserable day for Sauber who couldn’t find anything in terms of pace to get remotely near the points positions. Like Alpine and Haas, they had a driver in Q2, but never looked like getting into Q3.
It was also a disappointing day for Daniel Ricciardo, who was left to rue a mistake reading into turn five which saw his flying lap deleted which had provisionally seen the hometown driver be in tenth, only for him to be relegated back down so he starts his home Grand Prix on the back row, alongside Zhou.
It was also a terrible session for Mercedes and, in particular, Lewis Hamilton. Whilst George Russell never looked competitive in Q3 and was a notable margin off the pace, at least he made it to Q3. For the first time since 2010, Lewis Hamilton didn’t make that session and ended up in eleventh, unable to lock any sort of consistency from his silver arrow, that right now looks rather blunt.
So Sainz will be Verstappen’s nearest challenger tomorrow it seems. To what extent can he do damage? Will Checo Perez play a part in helping Red Bull continue their dominance even from sixth? We only have one day to wait and see.
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