MELBOURNE, Australia — Two days after saying it was “short-sighted” to talk up McLaren’s perceived advantage over its Formula One rivals, Lando Norris was no longer able to deflect attention from his team.
Qualifying for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix was always going to reveal the rough pecking order, clearing the inevitable smoke and mirrors of testing. With nowhere left to hide, McLaren delivered the pace everyone expected as Norris led Oscar Piastri to a front-row lockout.
It wasn’t without its moment of concern. A mistake by Piastri and a track limits breach by Norris on their opening Qualifying 3 runs allowed Max Verstappen to take provisional pole. But both drivers more than made up for it with rapid final laps to go P1 and P2, separated by just eight-hundredths of a second in Norris’ favour but both three-tenths clear to Verstappen in third.
Norris said that while there’d been confidence from McLaren through preseason, to have that kind of margin in what was anticipated to be one of the closest F1 title fights in years was a surprise. “It really was not necessarily our expectation, to have a bit of a gap to the rest of the cars,” Norris said.
Piastri expected Ferrari to be the biggest threat, only for Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to slump to seventh and eighth in Q3. “In FP3, pretty much any one of the top four teams looked like they could be a challenger,” he said, wryly adding: “Maybe we just took more sandbags out than everyone else…”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admitted he too was surprised by the gap to Ferrari in particular, with Leclerc almost seven-tenths off Norris, and also noted how strong both Red Bull and Mercedes had looked at points through qualifying. “This may create a slightly over-optimistic picture in terms of the competitiveness of the team,” Stella said. “So, feet on the ground. There is a lot that we can improve and we should improve for the future.”
What made the difference in Q3 was a mighty final sector from both Piastri and Norris, whose first and second sector times were in a similar ballpark to Verstappen’s first lap, only to then vault clear at the very end. McLaren targeted tire temperature management as an area for improvement through the winter to benefit its race pace so it could be more gentle through the long runs.
But in Australia it paid off over a single lap, with the tires still providing optimum performance and grip in the final few corners while Verstappen and co. struggled as they’d already used up the best of the rubber.
The result may have surprised McLaren. But for its rivals, qualifying simply proved what they’d expected heading to Australia: the papaya car would be the one to beat. Verstappen admitted he was “quite surprised” to have made the top three after a difficult Friday, and he doubted Red Bull had the long-run pace to properly challenge McLaren. “I don’t expect any kind of miracles about it,” Verstappen said. “I think it’s OK, but not on the same level (as McLaren). I’ll just do my best and do what I can.”
Having its cars start first and second on the grid also presents McLaren with its first ‘good problem’ of the season. After all the chatter around ‘papaya rules’ and how it managed an intra-team battle last year to support Norris’s long-shot for the title, now everything is reset. Norris and Piastri are free to race with the usual caveats surrounding their rules of engagement on the race track.
“There’s obviously been discussions, because we’re prepared,” Norris said. “We know we’re going to have a lot more of this kind of thing over the course of the season. There are clearly rules we cannot cross.” Yes, he and Piastri can fight each other, but they must do so cleanly without ever compromising the team result or opening the door for a driver behind. “The number one rule is to have no contact, and to give each other space,” Piastri said. “That’s no different.”
Stella said McLaren’s approach for such a scenario had been subject to “important work” through the winter, and hailed the diligence of his drivers for preparing for the eventuality of battling on the track, with last year’s first-lap scrap at Monza being an example of how not to do it. Their battle let Leclerc pass Norris for second place before going on to win.
“You call them rules, I think it’s more principles,” Stella said. “Because rules mean that you have to deal with a specific scenario. But in reality, there are so many scenarios that while you can apply some principles and where possible some rules, ultimately we need to rely on the team and the drivers always remember that the interest of the team is above each of us.”
Verstappen may doubt his chances in the dry, but the most popular paddock smalltalk subject this week has been the weather forecast for Sunday after days of extreme heat. Although the percentage of heavy rain has been gradually reducing, the latest forecast suggests a shower could start around lunchtime and persist until the race starts at 3 p.m. local time (midnight ET/ 4 a.m. GMT).
Ever the great leveller, the rain could open the door for Verstappen, who extinguished Norris’ title hopes with a charge from 17th to victory at Interlagos last year in wet conditions. “The only thing I can say about Max in wet conditions is he is mega,” said Stella.
It would be another variable on a weekend that, with the exception of McLaren’s pace, has already produced some surprises in the competitive order.
A third row comprising Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsunoda and Williams’ Alex Albon, both ahead of the Ferraris, was a big surprise, as was Tsunoda’s teammate, Isack Hadjar, ending up as the top rookie in 11th. Kimi Antonelli and Liam Lawson, armed with a Mercedes and a Red Bull respectively, didn’t make it past Q1, Antonelli losing out due to damage and Lawson — who got the Red Bull seat over Tsunoda — paying the price for a very messy final lap.
The attention on Hamilton on Sunday will be at its fiercest following his winter move to Ferrari. In the hour leading up to the start of qualifying, a crowd of VIPs slowly grew in size outside the team’s hospitality in the paddock, a path eventually being cleared for Hamilton to make his way through to the garage. When he makes his race debut as a Ferrari driver, the anticipation will be all the greater.
Lining up eighth for his first race in the red car isn’t the romantic script anyone had in mind for Hamilton, yet it is the realistic one. He has spoken this week about needing to adjust to the different feel of the Ferrari car around Albert Park after so many years here in the Mercedes. “She behaves a little bit different,” Hamilton said.
During practice, Turn 6 was Hamilton’s weak point compared to Leclerc, who could carry around eight km/h to 10 km/h more through the corner. The extra momentum and speed translated into a big gain on the flat-out blast all the way to Turn 9. Hamilton focused on improving Turn 6 through final practice, but still lacked around 5 km/h on their respective fastest laps in Q3. He ended the session two-tenths behind Leclerc, which he felt satisfied with given Leclerc’s renowned pace over a single lap and how well he knows the Ferrari car.
But he conceded the Australia weekend has made him realize there is still a lot of learning to do despite his positivity through testing about his preparations. “Honestly, I thought I was further along than I was, and then I got here, FP1, and I was like, ‘Jeez, I’ve still got a way to go,’” Hamilton said.
Hamilton noted rain could create some extra opportunities to move up the order from eighth on the grid — even if it would also accelerate his learning curve at Ferrari.
“I’ve never driven the car in the wet,” Hamilton said. “I don’t even know where the wet switch is really, I don’t know which buttons I’ve got to switch. So that’s going to be new.”
(Top photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images)
