The reigning world champion of Formula 1, The Dutchman Max Verstappen, achieved this Saturday the best qualifying time for the Australian Grand Prix and his teammate from the Red Bull team, the Mexican Sergio “Checo” Pérez, was relegated to the last due to a problem in the braking system.
Verstappen, winner of the first race of the year in Bahrain, will start at the front harassed by the Mercedes of the British George Russell and Lewis Hamiltonlocated in the second and third position of the grid.
The Spaniards Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) occupied the fourth and fifth starting places in Melbournewhere Verstappen signed the 22nd pole position of his record and second of the current season.
The Dutchman, leader of the 2023 World Championship with a point advantage over Pérez, will have an unbeatable opportunity to widen the gap with the Mexicanfrustrated by an unreliable car in Australia.
The Guadalajara driver experienced the same problems in qualifying as in the third practice session on a wet track after the rain in the Formula 2 Sprint.
His car was stopped in the gravel of turn 3 of the Albert Park circuit and caused the first red tray of the “qualy”without the possibility of completing any fast lap, stated the official page of the category. Pérez was the winner of the last Saudi Arabian GP and this Sunday he will have to come back from the bottom to score points in Oceania.
Between sixth and tenth place The Canadian Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), the Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), the Thai Alexander Albon (Williams), the French Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and the German Nico Hülkenberg (Haas) will start.
Further behind will be the French Esteban Ocon (Alpine), the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), the British Lando Norris (McLaren), the Danish Kevin Magnussen (Haas), the Dutch Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri), the Australian Oscar Piastri ( McLaren), the Chinese Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo), the American Logan Sargeant (Williams) and the Finnish Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), in the penultimate place.
He Australian Grand Prix will start at 2.00 and will be broadcast live on Fox Sports, ESPN 2 and the Star+ platform.