Leclerc Takes Australia Pole Over Red Bulls
Calum Gill 08:43 09/04/2022
Charles Leclerc claimed his second pole of the 2022 Formula 1 season at the Australian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver outpaced title rival Max Verstappen by 0.286 seconds in a Melbourne session that finished half an hour later than planned due to two red flags. One of them came halfway through Q3 and was caused by Fernando Alonso’s Alpine crashing. Alonso - who had been rapid in practice too - was on a lap faster than Leclerc’s provisional pole when he went through the gravel and into the wall at the Turn 11 right-hander. He immediately suggested over team radio that a hydraulics problem might’ve been to blame, saying he’d been unable to downshift as he approached the corner. It leaves him 10th on the grid. Leclerc battled the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Saudi Arabia polesitter Sergio Pérez for pole after that, with Leclerc ahead by just 0.001 seconds into the closing minutes.
Verstappen jumped both of them to go fastest by 0.085 seconds but Leclerc still had more to come and claimed a clear pole with a 1:17.868. His team-mate Carlos Sainz fared much worse. The red flag for Alonso came out just as he was approaching the line on his first flying lap, and he then made an error at Turn 6 on his other attempt, leaving the second Ferrari ninth. Surprise practice three pacesetter Lando Norris proved McLaren’s Melbourne gains are real with a superb fourth on the grid ahead of the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. Norris’s home hero team-mate Daniel Ricciardo lines up seventh, alongside Esteban Ocon’s Alpine.
Qualifying had first been interrupted for 10 minutes late in Q1 when Nicholas Latifi and Lance Stroll came together in an odd incident at the fast Turn 5 kink. Latifi had allowed Stroll’s Aston Martin past him at Turn 3 after being told it was on a flying lap. But Stroll was slowing and Latifi then accelerated to repass him. Stroll had not set a time at that point following Aston Martin’s race to repair his car after his crash at the end of final practice. Stroll was given a three-place grid penalty for the incident. The red flag at least allowed Aston Martin to get the sister car of Sebastian Vettel - who had also crashed in FP3 - fixed to do a lap when the session resumed for a final two-minute dash.
Vettel managed to get ahead of Latifi into 18th, but was 0.9 seconds off the rest of the field having had barely any running since pre-season testing between his COVID absence, Friday’s engine failure and his heavy Saturday practice crash. Early-season stars Alfa Romeo and Haas failed to make Q3 this time. Haas had balance problems on Friday, when Kevin Magnussen was also ill and Mick Schumacher had a suspension issue. A surprise engine derating was a final blow for Magnussen as he dropped out in Q1 from 17th, while Schumacher scraped into Q2 by 0.031 seconds but was comfortably slowest in the next segment.
Magnussen will at least gain one place when Alex Albon’s five-place grid penalty for colliding with Stroll in Saudi Arabia takes effect. Albon qualified 16th, though he was also told to stop on track at the end of Q1 due to a car problem. He has since been thrown out of qualifying for an insufficient fuel sample. Valtteri Bottas’ streak of Q3 appearances ended as he could only manage 12th, two places and 0.7 seconds ahead of Alfa Romeo team-mate Zhou Guanyu. AlphaTauri also failed to reach Q3. Pierre Gasly was 11th after a messy Q2 in which one lap was disturbed by team-mate Yuki Tsunoda making an error in front of him and another by Russell passing him then backing off. Tsunoda was 13th.
