Australian GP – Leclerc beats Verstappen and Perez to take pole position

Charles Leclerc secured his second pole position this season and 11th in his career thanks to a brilliant final lap in Q3 that beat Red Bull drivers while Carlos Sainz disappointed in ninth place.

Alonso was stuck in fourth gear in Turn 11 due to a hydraulic failure in Q3 and went too wide, which caused him to crash into barriers and cause a red flag 6 minutes and 58 seconds before the end of Q3.

At the time, the fastest was Leclerc in Ferrari (1:18.239) ahead of Perez, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Ocon, Norris, Hamilton, Sainz and Russell while Alonso was the only one without a laptime.

Verstappen has beaten Leclerc’s time for 0.086 seconds, but Leclerc strikes back and sets a new fastest time, 0.286 seconds faster than Verstappen.

Perez finished third in the second Red Bull with less than a tenth of a second behind his team-mate while Norris beat the Mercedes drivers and finished fourth for McLaren.

Hamilton managed to beat teammate Russell by one-tenth in fifth and sixth place for Mercedes ahead of Ricciardo in the second McLaren who was three-tenths slower than Norris.

Ocon placed eighth ahead of Sainz who went too wide in the Turn 10 in his last fast lap and thus significantly reduced his chances of a good result in the race.

After the collision in Q3, Alonso finished tenth as the only time-less driver in the last part of qualifying.

Gasly finished in 11th place for AlphaTauri after Ocon knocked him out of Q3 in 0.090 seconds and Bottas was 12th as a faster Alfa Romeo driver.

Tsunoda also failed to place in Q3 and finished 13th ahead of Zhou in second Alfa Romeo while Schumacher was slowest in Q2 in 15th place for Haas.

Stroll and Latifi collided two minutes before the end of Q1 after Stroll first let go and then closed Latifi so there was a collision in which both drivers severely damaged their cars.

Qualifying resumed after marshals removed damaged cars and cleared the track of debris while Vettel managed to get out on the track after mechanics prepared his car at the last minute.

The German managed to set the laptime and take 18th place ahead of Latifi while in Q1 were eliminated Albon, who stopped on the track after the end of Q1, Magnussen, Vettel, Latifi and Stroll who was the only one who did not set the timed lap.

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