Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc beat Red Bull duo Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez to F1 Australian GP pole after multiple red flag stoppages.
Q1:
The first part in F1 Australian GP qualifying saw a steady start from 18 cars with Aston Martin racing against time to be ready for the session. They had to change the gearbox on Sebastian Vettel’s car as well, which added to their workload.
The session saw multiple yellow flag disruption with Williams’ Nicholas Latifi and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas having a moment. An impeding incident between Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was noted by the stewards.
There was another unsafe release being investigated for AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, as the session was red-flagged for an incident between Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Williams’ Latifi – the two Canadian F1 drivers on the grid.
Latifi gave way to Stroll in the left-hander but the Aston Martin slowed and started to move towards his right to seemingly allow Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou through, but as the former started to move right, the Williams driver tried to get back through him.
As he did, the two made a collision with the incident under investigation. This allowed Aston Martin to fix up Vettel’s car for the re-start. There was quite the traffic jam for the re-start and drivers were trying to overtake each other to get a clean run.
At the end of it, Red Bull duo Max Verstappen led the way with a 1m18.580s lap from Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. In the bottom list, Williams’ Alexander Albon (1m20.135s) missed out by 0.031s in 16th, with the Thai racer to have 3-place penalty too.
Albon was forced to stop the car after the session. He led Haas’ Kevin Magnussen (1m20.254s), who missed out on a Q2 slot as Vettel (1m21.149s) managed to get a lap to be 18th from Latifi (1m21.372s), while Stroll couldn’t set a time.
Q2:
The second part in F1 Australian GP qualifying saw it start with a brief yellow for Mercedes’ George Russell who went off. The stewards are to investigate Perez not slowing enough, while his teammate Verstappen almost caught out Mercedes’ Hamilton on his fast lap.
Despite being in the investigation zone, Perez ended up fastest with a 1m18.340s lap ahead of the Ferrari pair of Carlos Sainz and Leclerc in the Top 3. The bottom list saw AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly miss out in 11th after his 1m19.226s lap.
Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas (1m19.410s) missed out on Q3 as his streak of a Top 10 in qualifying also ended in 12th from AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda (1m19.424s) who managed to set a time on his final attempt. Zhou (1m20.155s) was 14th with Schumacher (1m20.465s) in 15th then.
Q3:
The final part in F1 Australian GP qualifying saw multiple drivers use the used tyres for their first run as a red flag ended what was looking a good run for Alpine’s Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard was green in S1 and purple S2 before crashing out.
He seemingly lost gear which pushed him onto the gravel and into the barriers. This caught out Ferrari’s Sainz whose lap wasn’t counted and he was eighth, with teammate Leclerc on provisional pole ahead of the Red Bull pair of Perez and Verstappen.
The re-start saw a mighty close battle between the Red Bull and Ferrari drivers with Perez coming up short by 0.001s on his initial lap. Verstappen then upped his pace to go fastest by 0.086s but Leclerc kept the best of 1m17.868s lap for his last attempt.
The Monegasque took F1 Australian GP pole by 0.289s in the end with Verstappen (1m18.154s) and Perez (1m18.240s) rounding the Top 3. McLaren’s Lando Norris (1m18.703s) stormed to fourth as Mercedes’ Hamilton (1m18.825s) managed to beat Russell (1m18.933s) for fifth.
McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo (1m19.032s) did well in seventh with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon (1m19.061s) eighth ahead of Ferrari’s Sainz (1m19.408s) whose initial lap cut cost him heavy as he made a mistake on his returning fast lap which summed up his running.
https://twitter.com/fia/status/1512703368212459520?s=20&t=CXa9V8qrhmf346qdHCC30w
UPDATE: Bad luck for Aston Martin continued as the team were fined 600 euros after pitlane speeding of 5 km/hr from Vettel for the one lap he did. At the same time, Stroll was handed a 3-place grid drop for the grand prix along with two penalty points.
“LAT pulled off course to the left and slowed at the exit of turn 4 to let cars by, the last of which was STR. At the exit of turn 5, STR appeared to not accelerate and was in the middle of the track. LAT made the decision to accelerate and pass STR on the right as STR was moving right toward the right hand edge of the track where the track curves slightly to the right on the run to turn 6.
“Contact was made between STR’s right front wheel and LAT’s left rear wheel, with the subsequent damage putting both cars out of the session. The Stewards find that STR was predominantly to blame for the collision because of his lack of situational awareness of LAT’s passing manoeuvre,” stated the FIA Stewards report.
Amid the investigation into Perez’s yellow flag saga, the FIA have also put Albon under investigation for lack of fuel sample. The Thai had stopped on track and the post-session collection saw only 0.33 liter from the car from the required 1.15 liters.
UPDATE 2: The FIA announced the decisions on Perez and Albon, where the latter was disqualified from qualifying after the team failed to provide the required fuel sample. Both the Thai racer and the Canadian are allowed to start the grand prix though.
“After Qualifying Car 23 had insufficient fuel to yield the required 1.0 litre sample. Given this situation, Car 23 is not in compliance with the requirements of Article 6.5 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations. According to Art. 6.5.2 competitors must ensure that a 1.0 litre sample of fuel may be taken from the car at any time.
“The procedure was followed however the 1.0 litre sample of fuel was unable to be taken. The Stewards determine to apply the standard penalty for technical infringements. Therefore they took into account, that it shall be no defence to claim that no performance advantage was obtained. The Stewards have received a request from Williams Racing to allow Car 23 to start the race. The Stewards therefore grant permission for Car 23, Alex Albon to start the race,” stated the report.
As for Perez, there was no further action as they found that he lifted as much he was needed to do. Additionally, the FIA summoned both Tsunoda and Leclerc for driving unnecessarily slowly on their in-laps at 17:01 and 16:09 local time respectively.
“The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 11 (Sergio Perez), the team representative and have reviewed video, marshalling system and telemetry evidence. As PER approached turn 11, a single yellow flag was displayed for a car in the escape road.
“PER was warned by his team on the radio at the same time the signals were displayed at the corner. Compared to his previous lap, he lifted 70 meters earlier, braked 50 meters earlier, and carried 14kph less speed into the corner. As a result of these actions, the Stewards conclude that PER acted appropriately to the situation and take no further action,” the report stated.
UPDATE 3: The FIA cleared both Leclerc and Zhou for slow in-laps, while Tsunoda was reprimanded which is the Japanese’s third of the year for driving and the one that puts him at risk for grid penalty.
Explaining the three decisions, the FIA started with Leclerc’s. “LEC started a lap that was intended to be a cool down lap, not an in lap, which would not be subject to the minimum time restriction of the regulation. Part way through the lap, the decision was made to come in. During the lap there was heavy traffic and LEC took effort to ensure that he did not impede other drivers on push laps.
“These efforts significantly slowed his lap time. As a result, the minimum time was breached. The Stewards accept the driver’s rationale for his actions; find that he acted reasonably under the circumstances; and, therefore, take no further action,” it stated.
For Zhou, it said: During the lap there was heavy traffic and ZHO took effort to ensure that he did not impede other drivers on push laps. These efforts slowed his lap time. As a result, the minimum time was slightly breached. The Stewards accept the driver’s rationale for his actions; find that he acted reasonably under the circumstances; and, therefore, take no further action.”
And for Tsunoda: “TSU drove a slow in lap at the end of the session without other traffic that impacted his driving. The required minimum lap time was breached without good or apparent reason. The Stewards, therefore, reprimand him for breaching the regulation.”
