Leclerc on Australian F1 GP pole with Verstappen second and Hamilton fifth

Charles Leclerc claimed pole position for the Australian Grand Prix with an exceptional lap for Ferrari in Melbourne to beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen into second place. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Pérez was in third, with McLaren’s Lando Noris taking an excellent fourth place. Mercedes continued to struggle with Lewis Hamilton in fifth and George Russell in sixth at a circuit where they have claimed pole for the last six consecutive meetings. It was a result however they would take having looked off the pace all weekend.

Leclerc put in a superlative lap at Albert Park in what is a welcome return to Australia, with the meeting having not been held here for the past two years because of the pandemic.

On his first hot runs in Q3 Leclerc, who has looked in fine form all weekend, set the pace with a 1minute 18.239sec time but it was only one-tenth up on Pérez, who had been very competitive throughout qualifying. Verstappen had also looked strong but for a small lockup that cost him time on what was a formidable lap, one-thousandth off Pérez. The session was stopped when Fernando Alonso crashed out at turn 11 after a hydraulic failure on his Alpine. He will start from 10th place.

The session resumed after 10 minutes with the track cooling as the shadows lengthened in Melbourne. Pérez pushed on his final hot lap and came so close, within one thousandth of Leclerc’s time, while Verstappen put together a clean lap to edge into the top spot. Yet Leclerc had even more, his final lap was immense, clocking 1m 17.868sec to leave his rivals reeling, a full three-10ths up on Verstappen.

Mercedes had sent Hamilton and Russell out early to warm their tyres up and for the first time in the weekend their car managed to look at least able