‘We got blown out of the water’: Piastri to start home race from fifth as Mercedes unleash their true pace

“It was a great day,” he said after stopping the clock with a lap of 1min 18.518secs, 0.293 faster than Antonelli.

“We knew there was a lot of potential in the car, but until you get to the first Saturday of the season, you never know. But it really came alive this afternoon, and when the track temperatures cooled, we tend to favour these conditions.”

Qualifying pace remained unknown until Russell blitzed Saturday’s practice session, a last-gasp lap leaving him atop the timesheets by a whopping six-tenths of a second, and then dropping it on the field by leading all three phases of qualifying as he serenely sailed to the eighth pole position of his eight-year career.

While Russell cruised, Antonelli came good at the end of a fraught Saturday where he crashed his Mercedes heavily at the second corner in practice, his team racing the clock to be ready for qualifying just two hours later.

The Italian’s session wasn’t without further incident – he left the Mercedes garage with a pair of cooling fans affixed in the radiators of his car, which then spilled onto the circuit and were collected by McLaren’s world champion Lando Norris, prompting a post-qualifying stewards investigation – but Mercedes had the rest of the pack firmly in the rearview, Red Bull Racing’s Isack Hadjar qualifying third, but seven-tenths of a second adrift as a distant best of the rest.

Hadjar and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc were ahead of Piastri in fifth, the local hero comfortably ahead of world champion teammate Norris in every on-track session of the weekend so far, but with McLaren’s constructors’ championship dominance of the past two seasons shaken by the all-new cars debuting under a new regulation set in Melbourne this weekend.

The 24-year-old Melburnian, second on the grid at home 12 months ago before he slithered off track in a late-race rain shower to finish ninth, was Russell’s closest challenger in Q1 and fourth in Q2, but a final-corner wobble on his first flying lap in the final 12-minute phase of qualifying saw him drop back to the third row of the grid, 0.862 seconds from pole.

“It’s about where we thought we would be. Obviously behind the two Mercedes it’s pretty close, so it’s not a huge surprise that we are where we are,” Piastri said.

“I think it went reasonably smoothly out there today – I think we executed mostly pretty good. I can’t complain from that side.

“Let’s wait and see how we can find some performance, but we can build a solid base from it.”

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen made a shock early exit from qualifying, the Dutchman crashing heavily at Albert Park’s first corner with seven minutes remaining in Q1 after losing control of the rear of his Red Bull Racing machine under braking.

Verstappen, who had never qualified worse than 12th in Australia in nine previous visits, was left wringing his right wrist after keeping his hands on the steering wheel as the car clattered into the barriers at the first corner, and faces a monumental task to add to his three previous Melbourne podiums on Sunday from 20th place on the grid, ahead only of 2024 Melbourne winner Carlos Sainz (Williams) and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, neither of whom competed in qualifying with technical issues.

A maiden win in Melbourne looks like Russell’s to lose, but the 28-year-old was cautious for the first race of a new rules era where reliability is likely to be as important as outright pace.

“I think the goal for us is to make the finish line, because we honestly don’t know what’s going to happen,” Russell said, effectively dodging the question of whether Mercedes had kept its true pace under wraps until this weekend.

“It wasn’t a case of us sandbagging … I think it was more a case of some of the other teams showing more than we would have expected in testing, which we’ve seen this on numerous occasions in the past.

“The Red Bull looks quick, and we know how incredible a driver Max is as well. Isack has done an amazing job to be in this position, so who knows where Max would have been?”

Contender’s epic crash ahead of Australian Grand Prix qualifying

Hannah Kennelly

After weeks of underplaying their pace, Mercedes finally unveiled their true speed on Saturday afternoon at Albert Park, with George Russell clocking the fastest lap in a dramatic third practice session marred by red flags and stunning crashes.

Russell clocked a blistering a lap time of 1:19.053, however Mercedes mechanics are racing against the clock to fix his teammate Kimi Antonelli’s car after the youngster collided with the barrier – the Italian young gun walking away unscathed.

Russell’s sizzling lap was six tenths faster than Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton in second, followed by Charles Leclerc and Australian Oscar Piastri in fourth.

Piastri completed an impressive second practice session on Friday to clock the fastest lap for the day, however he struggled with pace early on Saturday.

F1 fans watching Saturday’s practice session got a taste of what the first qualifying session for 2026 could have in store: multiple delays, red flags and crashes.

It was an unwelcome session for Williams driver Carlos Sainz jnr, whose progress was stopped after a power unit failure.

The Spaniard had to awkwardly wait in his car for marshalls to help remove the track from the car, ultimately triggering a red flag.

The new regulations paint a complicated picture for several F1 teams, with several drivers appearing to struggle with their new engines and power.

Antonelli’s monster crash occurred near turn 2, smashing into the barrier after accelerating off the kerb. This incident, too, triggered a red flag.

Mercedes have emerged as one of the season’s early favourites after a positive pre-season test period in Bahrain and will be hoping to qualify on the front row for Sunday’s race, with Russell looking likely to take pole.

However, the team has a mighty task ahead to fix Antonelli’s car before Saturday’s qualifying session at 4pm (local time). Initial pictures from the track indicated his gearbox might have been damaged, which would dramatically impact his mechanics’ turnaround time.

Piastri’s former performance trainer Kim Keedle, an Australian who was in the paddock on Friday, was called up to work with Mercedes rival Russell this weekend because his own trainer was stuck overseas amid travel disruption caused by conflict in the Middle East.

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