George Russell wants to ‘make hay’ after dominating Australian GP qualifying

George Russell vowed to “make hay while the sun shines” after he blitzed his world championship rivals to take a crushing pole position for Sunday’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The British driver, 28, arrived for the new campaign here in Melbourne as the bookmakers’ favourite in a Mercedes tipped to master Formula One’s new regulations.

And Russell delivered in his flying Silver Arrows with an impressive lap of the Albert Park circuit which was nearly three tenths faster than team-mate Kimi Antonelli.

Following Max Verstappen’s shock early exit after he crashed out on the opening corner of his first qualifying lap of the year, Isack Hadjar took third on his Red Bull debut. However, Hadjar was almost eight tenths slower than Russell.

Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, defending champion Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton followed for Ferrari and McLaren. But the quartet were the best part of a sobering second behind Russell. No wonder Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was grinning from ear-to-ear at the conclusion of the one-sided session of what could be a one-sided year.

“We thought as a team we had a really good package beneath us, but we didn’t quite think it was that good,” said Russell.

“I am definitely surprised by the gap. We have a really great engine, but we also have a great car, too, and that hasn’t been highlighted enough.

“We want to win, we want to be on pole, we want to dominate the weekend, but it is a really long season, and we need to get through tomorrow and have a clean race.

“And I definitely have to make hay while the sun shines. My mentality coming into this race is if we started on the front foot, it doesn’t guarantee anything. And if we started on the back foot, it doesn’t guarantee anything either.”