The Monegasque signed an authoritative pole position in Australia to quite clearly beat the Dutch world champion.
Charles Leclerc will start at the head of the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday in Melbourne (start of the race at 7 a.m., to follow live with commentary on our site). The Monegasque from Ferrari took an authoritative pole position and made an impression on the Albert Park track on Saturday ahead of the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, relegated to 0”286 and 0”372 respectively .
Lando Norris follows on McLaren (4th, +0”835) then Lewis Hamilton (5th, +0”957) and George Russell (6th, +1”065) in 4e line driving their Mercedes. In front of his home crowd, Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) will start in 7e position (+1”164) ahead of Esteban Ocon (Alpine, +1”193) and a Carlos Sainz well behind his Ferrari teammate (+1”540).
Note the exit from the track in Q3 by Fernando Alonso who had to settle for 10e square. Victim of a hydraulic problem, the Spaniard was very fast before his accident and could aim for a place on the front or second row. Frustrating. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri, 11th), he failed in Q2. Like Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo, 12e) who remained out of 103 career Q3 qualifications.
Leclerc “surprised” by his pace
“The car is really fun to drive, I’m quite surprised by our pace in qualifying,” savored Leclerc at the microphone of Canal + after his 11e career pole position, his 2e of the season after the one in Bahrain. I’m happy to start in front because it’s a circuit that we haven’t been to for a while (2019) and where I’ve never felt very comfortable in the past. I look forward to tomorrow.” You have to go back to 2007 to see a Ferrari start on pole in Melbourne (Kimi Raïkkönen).
On the Red Bull side, we limited the breakage. “I haven’t felt well in this car since the start of the weekend, admitted a somewhat frustrated Max Verstappen. 2eit’s already not bad but I can’t reach the limits of the car.
