More red flags and a big accident in qualifying! This brought very interesting results or who took pole position?

Qualifying for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix brought a very attractive spectacle. Fans witnessed a big accident during the first part of qualifying, and then Fernando Alonso’s accident in Q3. Saturday’s performance, however, brought very interesting results!

As was the case two weeks ago in Saudi Arabia, fans witnessed red flags and a rather large accident at the Melbourne circuit, which was caused by Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Nicholas Latifi (Williams).

It should be noted that this collision can be blamed on the Aston Martin driver, who failed to look in his mirrors and crashed into Latifi, who was trying to pass him.

The circuit immediately waved red flags, with race directors suspending qualifying for several minutes.

Even in the aftermath of this accident, the first part of qualifying did not produce any surprising results – in addition, Aston Martin changed the power units on its monoposts. Stroll and Sebastian Vettel took to the track in the final minutes of Q1, but failed to progress to the next part of qualifying.

From the very tail of the grid, Stroll will therefore start Sunday behind nineteenth-placed Latifi, eighteenth-placed Vettel, seventeenth-placed Magnussen and sixteenth-placed Alexander Albon. In the middle part of qualifying we did not see either of the Aston Martin or Williams monoposts.

Fifteenth-placed Mick Schumacher, Kuan-yu Zhou, Jouki Cunoda, Valtteri Bottas and eleventh-placed Pierre Gasly were unable to make it through to the final stage of qualifying from Q2.

In the third and final part of qualifying, the fans in the stands and on the TV screens saw only five teams – Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, Alpine and McLaren.

In the first minutes of Q3, it looked like a really tough and interesting battle for pole position, with Alonso wanting to have a say with his great time in the Alpine.

However, he was betrayed by a power unit that went out of service on the approach to Turn 11, whereupon the Spanish driver failed to turn into the corner and ended up in the wall. Alonso will therefore start Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix from tenth place.

However, Charles Leclerc was the best of all in the battle for pole position, beating second-placed Max Verstappen by a quarter of a second!

Third place was secured by Sergio Pérez. The thirty-two-year-old Mexican lost 86,000 seconds, but the gap between third and fourth place is much wider.

Free practice had already shown that McLaren had managed to solve at least some of its downforce or performance problems, and its drivers made that clear in qualifying.

In fact, fourth position at the start belonged to Lando Norris, albeit almost half a second behind Pérez. His teammate, Australian Daniel Ricciardo, set the seventh fastest time, with both Mercedes drivers among the McLaren drivers.

Lewis Hamilton will start from fifth on Sunday, with George Russell securing the sixth starting slot. Esteban Ocon, Alonso’s stablemate, lost nearly 1.2 seconds to the qualifying winner.

Carlos Sainz had an unlucky qualifying session, losing his fast time due to the red flags being displayed as a result of Alonso’s accident, with his next fast attempt only good enough for ninth position.

Source: F1 TV