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Australian GP: Difficult Qualifying in Melbourne

Despite early promise in FP3, the team will line up P7 and P11 for Sunday’s race

A challenging qualifying session left George Russell seventh and Lewis Hamilton 11th on the grid for tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix.

After making several overnight changes, both drivers were happier with the balance of the car in FP3. That translated into promising lap times, with both within the top-five and less than two tenths off P1.

That optimism from FP3 sadly didn’t translate into qualifying. Slightly different conditions, with warmer track temperatures and a wind direction change, proved difficult to get on top of. The positive balance from earlier disappeared and left the hour-long session a struggle.

After navigating through Q1, both drivers used two new sets of the Soft tyre in Q2. Unfortunately, Lewis couldn’t improve sufficiently on his final push lap, and he was knocked out in P11.

George made it through in P10 and used his final set of new Soft compound tyres to secure P7 on the grid. A solid effort but the pace of the car was not sufficient to trouble those higher up.

Despite a difficult Saturday, there are plenty of unknowns heading into Sunday’s race which may help to shake up the order.

No driver or team has run the Hard compound tyre yet. That will be the predominantly used tyre in tomorrow’s Grand Prix. Friday also highlighted a high-risk of graining and that could lead to multiple pit stops and cars having to manage their stints carefully. All of that could contribute to an exciting Sunday afternoon in Melbourne.

George Russell

It wasn’t the qualifying session we were hoping for today. It was challenging to get the tyres in the right window, and it is so tight out there so a few tenths can have a major impact. The car felt strong in FP3 but unfortunately that feeling didn’t quite translate into the afternoon.

We know where we need to improve the car and that is in the high-speed corners. Unfortunately, there are a decent amount of those here in Melbourne, so this circuit is definitely not playing to our strengths. I do think we’ll be in a better place tomorrow though when everyone has the fuel in their car. There are also many unknowns heading into the race. Nobody has run the Hard tyre, and that will be the compound that is primarily in use throughout. We may also see some graining. I think we will see a more exciting race here than we usually see. And ultimately, it is the Grand Prix that counts.

Lewis Hamilton

The car felt great in FP3. It was much improved from yesterday and we were right there at the front. Going into qualifying, the inconsistencies within the car showed up though, unfortunately. The wind typically picks up here in the afternoon and I think we suffered with that today, similarly to how we struggled in FP2. The car is on a knife’s edge, and it is difficult as a driver to work around these inconsistencies.

It’s not a great feeling for anyone in the team at the moment but we will keep working away. George did a good job today to get the car into Q3. I’ll be focused on coming back tomorrow and trying to do a better job.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

It was an underwhelming qualifying session today, particularly as we were only a few tenths off the fastest time in FP3. The conditions were different between the sessions, and we suffered from that. We have a car that is difficult and small changes can cause it to be outside of the working window. There is no simple solution as it is about the complex interaction between all the constituent elements of the car.

It is frustrating that we are still saying this, but we will continue to keep working on it. It is not because of a lack of trying that we are where we are, and we will push to get better. We will keep our heads down and work through this. The car has potential, as can be seen by our performance in FP3. It is tricky to consistently get it into this place though and improving that is what we are focused on doing.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

It felt like we'd made good progress overnight and the car was working well across FP3 this morning. However, that pace didn't seem to carry into qualifying and we finished a disappointing P7 and P11. The track was a little hotter and it was a little windier in qualifying, but that does not fully explain why the car was well behaved in one session and such a handful the next. The work to understand those issues will carry on in the background as we turn our focus to the race.

We've hopefully improved the long run since Friday, but we need to be realistic as to what we can achieve from our starting positions. Managing the tyres is a challenge here. They can be fragile, but we will be a few laps in before we can start to see how we are performing in terms of degradation. It's also a race where the strategy is normally dictated by incidents on track. We'll be on our toes and hopefully we can still take away a decent number of points.

2024 Australian GP Qualifying Results

1

Max Verstappen

Red Bull

1:15.915

2

Carlos Sainz Jr.

Ferrari

1:16.185

3

Sergio Pérez

Red Bull

1:16.274

4

Lando Norris

McLaren

1:16.315

5

Charles Leclerc

Ferrari

1:16.435

6

Oscar Piastri

McLaren

1:16.572

7

George Russell

Mercedes-AMG

1:16.724

8

Yuki Tsunoda

Racing Bulls

1:16.788

9

Lance Stroll

Aston Martin

1:17.072

10

Fernando Alonso

Aston Martin

1:17.552

11

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes-AMG

1:16.960

12

Alexander Albon

Williams

1:17.167

13

Valtteri Bottas

Sauber

1:17.340

14

Kevin Magnussen

Haas

1:17.427

15

Esteban Ocon

Alpine

1:17.697

16

Nico Hülkenberg

Haas

1:17.976

17

Pierre Gasly

Alpine

1:17.982

18

Daniel Ricciardo

Racing Bulls

1:18.085

19

Zhou Guanyu

Sauber

1:18.188

2024 Australian GP FP3 Results

1

Charles Leclerc

Ferrari

1:16.714

22

2

Max Verstappen

Red Bull

1:16.734

28

3

Carlos Sainz Jr.

Ferrari

1:16.791

20

4

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes-AMG

1:16.806

20

5

George Russell

Mercedes-AMG

1:16.886

23

6

Fernando Alonso

Aston Martin

1:16.997

20

7

Sergio Pérez

Red Bull

1:17.014

28

8

Oscar Piastri

McLaren

1:17.087

19

9

Lance Stroll

Aston Martin

1:17.341

22

10

Lando Norris

McLaren

1:17.490

22

11

Yuki Tsunoda

Racing Bulls

1:17.673

19

12

Valtteri Bottas

Sauber

1:17.752

20

13

Alexander Albon

Williams

1:17.759

23

14

Zhou Guanyu

Sauber

1:17.876

19

15

Esteban Ocon

Alpine

1:17.920

18

16

Nico Hülkenberg

Haas

1:17.941

17

17

Kevin Magnussen

Haas

1:17.961

18

18

Daniel Ricciardo

Racing Bulls

1:17.963

20

19

Pierre Gasly

Alpine

1:18.390

19

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