Formula 1

MAX ON POLE FOR AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX! GEORGE AND LCH P2 AND P3 THRILLING TOTO FERNANDO WILL LINE UP NEXT TO HIS BUDDY!

Max Verstappen claimed his first Melbourne pole position and 22nd career one when he proved a class above in Saturday qualifying as Mexican teammate Sergio Pérez’s Q1 track exit saw him end up on the back row of the grid for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.

After Pérez beached his car in the Turn 3 gravel during a tricky Q1 where the yellow flags flew, Verstappen stepped up in Q3 to set a time of 1m 16.732s ahead of the two Mercedes with Scuderia AlphaTauri duo Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries finishing in 12th and 15th respectively.

MAX VERSTAPPEN:  “Overall, it was a pretty good qualifying. It’s been tough this weekend to get the tyres in a good window to push straight away, but it all worked out in Q3 and the last run was good. I’m very happy with the lap and to be on pole position here in Australia. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, it’s going to be an interesting race that’s for sure. We need a clean start, and after that, hopefully we can do a good job. I’ve been on the podium here before but this time I want to be on a different step.”

GEORGE RUSSELL: What a session that was for us! The car felt alive today and we weren’t expecting that result at all. The lap at the end was right on the limit; I’m a little bit disappointed that we didn’t get pole position. But that’s one of those things in this sport. Your expectations change so quickly; we probably would have been happy with a top five result yesterday but today the car felt awesome. It goes to show we’ve got potential still to come. There is a lot of hard work going on back at the factory and here in Melbourne. I’m excited for tomorrow – it’s going to be tough against Max, but we’re definitely very happy to be lining up P2.

LEWIS HAMILTON: This was a totally unexpected result and I’m so happy and grateful for P3. My second lap wasn’t as good as the first one. I did gain a little bit of time in the last sector, but ultimately lost out a little bit at the beginning of the lap. I’m not disappointed though and I’m going to work as hard as I can to try and move forwards tomorrow. I’m proud of the team. We’re all working as hard as we can to get right back up the front, so to be this close to the Red Bull is incredible. Hopefully tomorrow we can give them a bit of a run for their money. And we hope the weather will be good.