George Russell took an imposing pole position as Mercedes dominated the first qualifying session of a new era of Formula 1 at the Australian Grand Prix.
The Briton led team-mate Kimi Antonelli by 0.363 seconds and was 0.785secs clear of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar in third place.
Max Verstappen crashed on his first lap to leave a degree of doubt as to the extent of Mercedes’ superiority, but it was an impressive start to a new period of regulations by the former champions.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fourth fastest, with the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris separating him from his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Briton Arvid Lindblad, 18, made an impressive start to his F1 career but a final lap that did not live up the standards he had set until then in the weekend left him behind Racing Bulls team-mate Liam Lawson in ninth place.
“All weekend we have been quite competitive, I was trying to not get too excited after yesterday because we didn’t know if other teams had more in the pocket but I kind of knew we’re fast and I just needed to focus on my job,” said Lindblad.
“It’s really impressive to have two cars in Q3. I’m extremely happy and just can’t wait for tomorrow.”
Aston Martin, who had been the story of the weekend for all the wrong reasons amid a litany of unreliability, eventually salvaged some respect with Fernando Alonso qualifying 17th.
But there is a mountain to climb for the team, especially on the power-unit side by partner Honda, before they can get to where they aspire to be.
Russell imperious as Antonelli has incident-packed day
George Russell was the only driver apart from Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri to win a grand prix last yearRussell had looked the most likely to deliver pole all weekend and he was imperious all session.
He said: “A lot of simple things in the past, like race starts and pit stops, are a hell of a lot more challenging with these new cars. I said: ‘Let’s just have a clean session because who knows what’s going to happen to tomorrow.’ But we’re in the best place we can be.”
Antonelli had an incident-packed day, starting with a heavy crash in final practice that left his team working against time to get his car ready for qualifying.
There was also a team error in sending him out for the final session with both cooling fans still in his sidepods.
They fell out at the first corner and one was hit by Norris, leaving the track strewn with debris and causing the session to be stopped.
But after looking erratic in his driving for most of the session, Antonelli composed himself for his final run and put the car where it deserved to be on the front row.
