The friendly helpers who want to show Max Verstappen the right way in the pit lane are hardly needed. The Dutchman can probably park his Red Bull racing car blindly after qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday (5 a.m. CET in the FAZ live ticker for Formula 1 and on Sky). In any case, the third qualifying of the season is also going as if the defending champions only have to switch on the autopilot when it matters most.
For almost the entire hour of the decisive time hunt, it looks as if the Ferrari drivers could finally bring Verstappen down – and then he remains untouchable. The 35th pole position of his career, the third in a row this year, is the reward for improving performance at the moment when it counts. Four tenths better than in the second section, that’s not just a simple improvement, but a huge leap forward.
Like he was just playing
Especially if you take his constant complaints about the car’s understeer seriously: “That was really difficult, but I’m happy with my fastest lap, even if it was a bit unexpected.” The man is a real winner If you don’t think about things as usual, then the chauffeur’s true talent shows. Sometimes it seems as if he’s just playing.
Carlos Sainz remains in second place in the Ferrari, 0.270 seconds behind. But the Spaniard is happy that he was able to hold out at this level 13 days after his appendectomy and made it to the front row of the grid: “To beat Max, I would have to be 100 percent fit, which I’m not yet. But I will also give everything in the race.”
His teammate Charles Leclerc, who was considered the favorite, once again threw away his chance of a place in the Australian autumn sun on the last lap and in the penultimate corner, starting only fifth, behind Verstappen’s stablemate Sergio Pérez and Lando Norris in the McLaren. Leclerc is now practiced at finding reasons why he keeps failing in the role of crown prince: “I lacked the right feeling for the car, for whatever reason.”
Next Mercedes debacle
Nevertheless, as things stand, Ferrari appears to be the only racing team that can seriously challenge Red Bull Racing. The Italians, as their performances on the road course show, have made the most progress over the winter.
Exactly the motivating restart that Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was longing for. But things continue to go backwards for the Silver Arrows, the car has too many unknowns. George Russell’s seventh place on the grid is another debacle compared to his own standards. Not to mention eleventh place for Lewis Hamilton.
At the end of the second qualifying section, the record world champion pleadingly asks his race engineer: “Are we safe in?” He answers, both correctly and shocked: “Negative. We’ve just been pushed out.” An early end – the search for the right balance, including the inner balance, continues.
The Brit had already asked himself during the last training session: “Where has all the time gone?” At least there is an answer to that: the British-German factory racing team loses to the fastest cars, especially on the high-speed sections. “It goes up and down “, complains team boss Toto Wolff, “that’s really bad.” The car, tires and set-up are still sensitive to temperature, which is a disadvantage in the moody Australian autumn.
A completely different kind of drama unfolded for the Williams team on Friday. Alexander Albon had destroyed his company car so much that the chassis was no longer usable. The traditional team is the only one of all racing teams that does not have a replacement car. The modernization of the racing car factory was overlooked for decades, and a radical transformation began under team boss James Vowles, who came from Mercedes – in the end there was a lack of time, money and machines to prepare a backup solution.
This left Vowles with the bitter task of banishing a driver to the pit garage. He chose the American Logan Seargant, who has the backing of the sponsors, but the accident driver Albon has greater experience and perspective. Vowles made the decision with an eye on the end-of-year accounting, where every placement and especially every point gained can make a huge difference in the prize money payout.
Hermann Renner, Melbourne Published/Updated: Recommendations: 3 Hermann Renner Published/Updated: Recommendations: 2 Sönke Sievers, Sakhir Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 8
This means that this season, which is still young but already marked by many surprises, has another novelty: only 19 racing cars will be at the start in Albert Park. In one of them sits Nico Hülkenberg from Emmerich, who only made it to 16th place on Saturday. He doesn’t look for excuses: “My lap just wasn’t clean enough. Our backs are against the wall here.”
