Max qualifies second in Australia: 'All over the place'

Published on 09 April 2022 by Kees-Jan Koster

Max Verstappen qualified second in an eventful qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix. Charles Leclerc took pole on the renewed Albert Park Circuit, almost three tenths ahead of Max. Sergio Perez and Lando Norris form the second starting row. Lewis Hamilton and teammate George Russell complete the top six.

While finishing second, Max was not happy after qualifying: “I did not feel good in the car the whole weekend. It has been all over the place. There has not been one lap where I felt confident, that means I cannot really push. Second is still a good result, but it is not where we want to be. We will try to analyse it.” The Dutchman explains they tried different setups during qualifying: “Sometimes it worked for one corner, but then I had a lockup in the next. I just could not get it working. That is a shame. It has been the problem this year, we will have to work hard to fix it.”

Looking ahead to the race the Dutchman is confident: “We must try to improve those little things. We just not have the right feeling in the car. Probably in the race everything stabilises a bit. It will work out then. But in qualifying you want to be ahead. Now we have to overtake one car”, concludes Max with a smile.

After two years of absence qualifying in Melbourne starts. During the last qualifying in 2019 Max finished fourth. He has never qualified for the Australian GP in the top three. Kevin Magnussen is the first to come out on track. Five minutes later Max comes out of the pitlane. He sets a 1:19.406 as his first timed lap, just behind the Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. Moments later splits Sergio Perez the red Ferraris and takes a provisional second place. Verstappen goes a second time and improves taking second position. Then he goes one more time and sets a 1:18.580 and creates a three tenths gap to Leclerc.

Halfway Q1 both Mercedes – visibly suffering form porpoising – set their first times: Lewis Hamilton in P10, and teammate George Russell in P9. At Aston Martin they are still working hard on both cars, after both lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel crashed in the FP3. Stroll comes out in the last three minutes of the session, but he crashes into Nicolas Latifi causing a red flag. At first the William driver went aside for Stroll, but then went to overtake him again. Stroll did not notice and hits the rear wheel of the Canadian. Latifi crashes into the wall and Stroll has damages his front suspension. The two Canadians are in P18 and P19 and are out of Q1.

After fifteen minutes all the debris of Latifi’s car is moved of the track. With less than two minutes to go the lights go green again. Luckily for Aston Martin is that the interruption has given them time to fix Vettel’s car, and so the German has a chance to compete in Q1. Everyone outside the top seven comes out straight away. Hamilton and Russell are not able to get over the line in time to set a quick lap, but they are both safe. In the final phase of Q1 nobody in the top five can improve. Alexander Albon, Magnussen, Vettel, Latifi and Stroll are the first to drop out of qualifying. Verstappen finished first in Q1. For Williams the drama is complete, Albon must park his car next to the track and cannot get back to the pitlane.

Verstappen is the first to come out in Q2, with a new set of soft tyres on his RB18. He sets a 1:18.611. Perez takes P2 more than three tenths behind, closely followed by the Ferrari of Leclerc. Fernando Alonso does a great job and pushes Perez from second position, but soon the Mexican takes P1 from Verstappen. He is almost three tenths quicker than his teammate. Russell goes off into the runoff area and causes a yellow flag. The steward will investigate Perez after qualifying for not lifting enough. Not much later Hamilton and Verstappen have a moment, Max is unaware that Lewis is on a quick lap and the Mercedes driver comes very close to the RB18 when passing. In the end Max goes through to Q3 in fourth position. The top three is formed by Perez, Sainz and Leclerc. Local hero Ricciardo goes through is ninth. Pierre Gasly, Valtteri Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda, Guanyu Zhou and Mick Schumacher drop out of Q2. This is the first time since 2016 for Bottas not to go through to Q3.

At the start of the decisive final session of qualifying many drivers change their visors. They chose a darker visor to combat the bright low sun. Verstappen sets a 1:18.398, but Perez is one thousandth of a second faster. With seven minutes to go Alonso starts his quick lap but loses control over his Alpine and crashes into the tyre barriers. On the radio he reports issues shifting. Shaking his head, he can walk away from his car unharmed. Moments before the red flag, Leclerc takes first position from Perez by setting a 1:18.239.

When the lights go green again the provisional top four is formed by Leclerc, Perez, Verstappen and Ricciardo. Both Mercedes are the first to come back out on track. Sergio Perez improves his time and now is one thousandth of a second behind Leclerc. Verstappen takes provisional pole a few seconds before the end of the session, but Leclerc is almost three tenths faster in his Ferrari and takes pole position. Perez, Norris, Hamilton and Russell complete the top six. Ricciardo finishes in seventh in his home country. The disappointed teammate of Leclerc, Sainz comes not further than ninth.

Contest GP Australia: win a by Max signed 1:4 Dutch GP 2021 scale model helmet!

Results qualifying Australia: