With a speed of over 250 km/h, Max Verstappen continued his dominance from pole position by beating Carlos Sainz in P1 in Saturday’s qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo were the big losers, with the Briton absent from Q2, where he finished 11th, while Ricciardo lost a lap time for exceeding track limits to finish a modest 18th.
Led by Alex Albon on the chassis of Logan Sargeant, a row of drivers sat at the end of the pit lane for about 3 minutes as they waited for the green light for qualifying. Going too far on the way to Turn 9, Albon’s first lap time was wiped out. .
With the tyre warm-up factor in FP3 still in play, Max Verstappen was quickest, but only 4 tenths behind Kevin Magnussen’s Haas before losing out to the Ferraris with Charles Leclerc ahead of Carlos Sainz. Verstappen accelerated on his moment of flight. lap still remained third Ferraris.
Meanwhile, team-mate Sergio Perez, worried about an alleged incident with Nico Hülkenberg, Pierre Gasly limped back to the pits when his A524 suffered a left-rear puncture as it skimmed the wall, and Fernando Alonso set the tone. Gasly also saw for crossing the white line at the exit of the pits.
Sainz regained the biggest lead in Q1 ahead of Perez and Verstappen, the trio separated by 0. 088s!Nico Hulkenberg, Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo, who lost his time on lap P10 for exceeding track limits, and Zhou Guanyu went out.
F1 2024: Head-to-head race stats between teammates
Seven must-have F1 weekends to tick off your 2024 bucket list
Q2 marked the second round of the Ferrari vs. Ferrari war. Red Bull with Verstappen in P1 on new tyres and with a new powertrain on his RB20. He is 3 tenths ahead of Sainz, who runs on used tyres, like Leclerc. Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris entered the war, completing second and fifth place after their first run of the session.
Relying on a new set of C5s for a second moto, Sainz took the lead with a 1:16. 1 inside a tenth of a second from Leclerc with Verstappen third.
Hamilton moved up to ninth but was threatened by the innovations of Yuki Tsunoda and then Lance Stroll. The seven-time world champion retired in eleventh place with Albon, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon.
Sainz, silencing any questions about his fitness, switched to purple, violet and violet to set the time to beat, 1:16. 331. Leclerc missed the target, but Verstappen got there, quickest in the first and third seconds, to beat Sainz by 0. 283 seconds. Perez was fourth ahead of his McLaren teammates.
Alonso was ninth after a great moment at Turn 6, and the Aston Martin driver was lucky to avoid a big crash.
However, there was a race to come. . .
Verstappen, Sainz, Perez and Leclerc traded punches and lap times in the purple sector as Ferrari led the war with Red Bull. Verstappen was the first to cross the line with a time of 1:15. 915, Perez finished second, then Sainz took the finish line. and Leclerc stopped.
Verstappen took pole position 0. 270s ahead of Sainz, Perez and Norris, in line ahead of Leclerc, Piastri, Russell, Tsunoda, Stroll and Alonso.
Read next: James Vowles questioned about how ‘harmful’ Logan Sargeant is in a thorny interview with Ted Kravitz