Welcome to our coverage for qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park street circuit in Melbourne. This is a race that for many years kicked off the season (and that will be the case in 2025) so it always feels slightly strange when it comes a few races into the season. It was also the case that the track here did not tend to produce great racing though that has been improved with a remodelling of certain parts of the track and a now record four DRS zones.
Will this all mean Max Verstappen might be stopped this weekend? Well, probably not. Going on Friday’s practice, though, there was some promise that Ferrari might be able to challenge him over one lap. Charles Leclerc topped FP2 and was 0.4sec nearly ahead of the defending champion. The caveat here is that Verstappen had a disrupted session, missing the first 20 minutes as the floor on his RB20 was changed. In third practice earlier this morning, Verstappen found a bit of pace to finish second again, this time well within a tenth of a second behind Leclerc. Carlos Sainz was third for Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton fourth for Mercedes – both within a tenth of a second of the fastest time of the session.
In fairness Ferrari has been almost the equal to Verstappen’s Red Bull since the mid-point of last season. Since Belgium 2023 Ferrari has taken six poles and Red Bull seven. The greater weakness of Red Bulls’ rivals has been when it comes to race pace. And that has continued this year with the winning margin from the lead Red Bull to the best non-Red Bull car has been 25 and 18 seconds respectively. Should Ferrari be able to challenge over Saturday and Sunday that would be a surprise, but that does not mean we can rule it out.
Challenging might well be the most we can hope for. Verstappen has had so little to think about on race day so far this year. Two races, two poles and both times he has led at the first corner, at the end of the first lap and chequered flag. Strategically every other team was an irrelevance. It would be nice to have the smallest smidgen of doubt or jeopardy at the front.
Qualifying begins at 5am GMT so we do not have to wait too long to find out.