Leclerc’s risks pay off for top grid spot
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc says risky guesswork has been rewarded with pole position at the Australian Grand Prix.
Leclerc topped qualifying despite being blinded by the setting sun at times at Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit yesterday.
The pacesetter was almost three-tenths of a second faster than reigning world champion Max Verstappen, who says he’s having a ‘‘terrible’’ time with his Red Bull car.
Monaco-born Leclerc took massive punts en route to his 11th career pole position.
‘‘Honestly, in my first lap in Q2, I took a lot of risks there because I had no idea where was the limit of the track,’’ he said.
‘‘You are just guessing a little bit, it’s just with the rhythm of the weekend you know more or less you need to turn here. But I really had zero idea where was the limit of the track and it was very tricky.’’
Leclerc set the pace with a fastest lap of 1:17.868. Red Bull duo Max Verstappen (1:18.154) and Sergio Perez (1:18.240) were next best, followed by McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who has taken pole in the past six Australian races, qualified fifth-fastest.
The qualifying period slated for 60 minutes ultimately lasted one hour and 34 minutes after two crashes paused racing. Alpine’s Fernando Alonso hit a wall during the final 10-minute qualifying period, citing a hydraulics problem. And Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi crashed with two minutes remaining in the initial 20-minute period after tangling with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll.
Both drivers blamed each other.
‘‘Latifi, man ... what is he
doing, he just drove straight into me,’’ Stroll told his team radio.
But Latifi told his team: ‘‘He [Stroll] wasn’t looking in his mirrors . . . the car is destroyed.’’
While Williams and Aston Martin mechanics will work into the night on repairs, Ferrari have no such problems after Leclerc claimed top billing and teammate Carlos Sainz ninth.
Leclerc won the seasonopening grand prix in Bahrain and finished second behind Verstappen in Saudi Arabia to lead the driver’s championship.
While the setting sun presented problems for all drivers, Red Bull’s Verstappen also had other issues.
‘‘It has been terrible for me, the whole weekend so far,’’ he said.
‘‘I never felt comfortable for one lap. It has just been a big struggle and clearly we didn’t really seem to fix it, even in qualifying. I just struggled a lot with the balance of the car and it just doesn’t give you confidence to push.’’
Home race hope Daniel Ricciardo will start from seventh on the grid with a best lap of 1 minute 19.032 seconds, but the Aussie will take confidence going into the race despite saving his worst for the final lap of qualifying.
The McLaren star was eyeing a top-four grid position heading into the dying stages of qualifying, but a disappointing finish saw Ricciardo tumble down the rankings as the session went longer than expected.
Ricciardo, in his second season with McLaren, is tempering his hopes of improvement in Melbourne, but a quiet confidence is building in him. However, he was not shying away from a dire conclusion to qualifying where three drivers, including Hamilton, pipped his best time.
‘‘It’s been a good weekend ... but I’m a little bit frustrated because probably my worst lap for the weekend was my last one,’’ Ricciardo said. ‘‘It just
started in turn one, and I felt like I was close to going off the track probably three times in that last lap.
‘‘I’m not really sure what we missed there, something was a little bit off. A shame in that situation when it counts not to put it there. It’s late and the visibility was tricky, so we’ll analyse the last lap and prepare for the race.’’
Ricciardo spent more than a week in his home city of Perth after failing to finish the Saudi
Arabian GP. That Jeddah race followed a 14th place in the season opener in Bahrain as McLaren battle teething problems in their cars.
Ricciardo has experienced mixed fortunes at his home grand prix, with fourth his best result in 2016 and 2018 when racing for Red Bull.
In the last race at Albert Park back in 2019, he suffered an early calamity and was later forced to retire.