Toro Rosso’s Hartley to start 16th on grid
Brendon Hartley will start the Australian Grand Prix from 16th on the grid after failing to get out of the first qualifying session yesterday.
The Toro Rosso driver spent the whole session in the elimination zone and was last heading into his final flying lap on fresh tyres.
He produced his best lap of the session to move up to 16th but not fast enough to progress to Q2. He was only 0.029s away from putting the Toro Rosso-Honda into the next qualifying session and a 0.188s improvement would have earned him 13th.
It was hard to gauge where he was compared with team-mate Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman was 20th fastest but made a hash of his final flying lap, locking his brakes and understeering off the track momentarily.
Hartley was faster than both Saubers and the Williams of rookie Sergey Sirotkin.
“Definitely a little bit annoyed to be 16th and not one or two places ahead,” the 28-year-old New Zealander said.
“It was really tight. The car felt good on that last lap. A bit frustrating because I can’t help but feel like there was a couple of tenths left on the table from my side. I guess everyone will have a similar story.
“That battle from 10th to the back is really tight — we just missed out. A little bit annoying but there are a lot of positives from the first round.
“We can definitely fight in that midfield and, if not [today], soon battle to be in the points. [Yesterday] was encouraging and so was the long run pace, it’s just a question of how we make up a few places [today].”
Reigning champion Lewis Hamilton posted a lap record in Q3 to secure pole position from Ferrari pair Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel.
Max Verstappen starts fourth in the Red Bull. Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas lost control of his car early in Q3 and smashed into the wall, bringing out a red flag. ● Scott Pye last night scored his first win six years and 165 races into his Supercars career in the third of the weekend’s four races in Melbourne this weekend.
Pye fought back tears and dedicated the long-awaited victory to his late dad after what he described as “the drive of my life”.
“My dad’s up there [in heaven] — he could have helped a bit more with the weather, but yeah, obviously I miss him and this is for him.” Pye said.
He held on to win by 0.26s ahead of Jamie Whincup, who was also second in the Friday night race before winning yesterday’s short race.
Scott McLaughlin has been the best-performed of the Kiwis in Melbourne, winning Friday’s race and finishing second and 15th yesterday. Fabian Coulthard placed third and Shane van Gisbergen fourth in the first two Melbourne races.