“We are too slow for now,” was Charles Leclerc’s verdict on a disappointing first qualifying session of the season for Ferrari.
Having topped the times on Friday, Ferrari were dismayed to find themselves the sixth-fastest team in qualifying. While that does not appear to be an accurate reflection of exactly how quick their car is, the stopwatch won’t be argued with.“The feeling overall is not great,” Leclerc told Viaplay after qualifying. “We were struggling quite a lot with the car.
“The balance was tricky, but eventually when you start to struggle a lot with the balance it’s because you’ve got to push more than the actual limit of the car.”
Ferrari appeared to take a misstep with the SF-25 on Saturday. In Leclerc’s efforts to get on top of the car, and those of new team mate Lewis Hamilton who is still adapting to it, the pair fell short of its potential.
Leclerc abandoned his final lap after a series of errors. From his and Hamilton’s sectors it’s clear they were capable of a 1’17.4-1’17.5, instead of the 1’17.7 Leclerc managed. That would have put them in the thick of the fight for the second row, not relegated to the fourth behind a Williams and a Racing Bulls.
Teams’ performance
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McLaren demonstrated they are the team to beat, at this track at least, by emphatically claiming the front row. Their margin was slightly larger than Red Bull’s at this race last year, though they qualified first and third on that occasion (before Sergio Perez’s penalty).
As looked likely after yesterday’s running, Alpine confirmed themselves as the most improved team year-on-year at this track. However while Sauber appeared to have made the second-biggest step yesterday, they fell to sixth once qualifying was over. Curiously, all three Ferrari-powered teams made smaller gains than their rivals overnight.
Haas find themselves in the worst position, having improved their lap time year-on-year by less than three tenths of a second. The slow corners of the Bahrain International Circuit failed to show a weakness of their car, said team principal Ayao Komatsu. “We’re lacking a lot in high-speed corners and we didn’t see that coming from Bahrain testing,” he remarked, “but this is the reality currently and we need to find a solution as quickly as possible.”
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Sector times
The McLaren pair rebounded from poor first laps to produce their best times in all three sectors with their final efforts. Only one other driver put their quickest sector times together in one lap: Yuki Tsunoda, who claimed an impressive fifth.
Don’t overlook his team mate Isack Hadjar, however, who got within 0.009s of his potential best lap. However George Russell must be looking at his sector times and reflecting that Verstappen was beat-able. And in his first qualifying session at Ferrari, Hamilton left a lot of time on the table, but at least showed potential.
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| P. | # | Driver | S1 | S2 | S3 | Ultimate lap (deficit) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | Lando Norris | 25.961 (1) | 16.997 (5) | 32.138 (1) | 1’15.096 |
| 2 | 81 | Oscar Piastri | 26.082 (3) | 16.952 (3) | 32.146 (2) | 1’15.180 |
| 3 | 63 | George Russell | 26.104 (4) | 16.951 (2) | 32.297 (4) | 1’15.352 (+0.194) |
| 4 | 1 | Max Verstappen | 26.055 (2) | 16.915 (1) | 32.421 (5) | 1’15.391 (+0.090) |
| 5 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | 26.150 (5) | 17.060 (10) | 32.263 (3) | 1’15.473 (+0.446) |
| 6 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | 26.190 (8) | 17.005 (7) | 32.475 (7) | 1’15.670 |
| 7 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | 26.184 (6) | 17.025 (8) | 32.466 (6) | 1’15.675 (+0.080) |
| 8 | 23 | Alexander Albon | 26.186 (7) | 16.978 (4) | 32.513 (8) | 1’15.677 (+0.060) |
| 9 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | 26.269 (9) | 17.000 (6) | 32.584 (10) | 1’15.853 (+0.078) |
| 10 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | 26.293 (11) | 17.051 (9) | 32.560 (9) | 1’15.904 (+0.076) |
| 11 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | 26.300 (12) | 17.107 (11) | 32.747 (14) | 1’16.154 (+0.134) |
| 12 | 6 | Isack Hadjar | 26.345 (13) | 17.139 (12) | 32.682 (11) | 1’16.166 (+0.009) |
| 13 | 7 | Jack Doohan | 26.270 (10) | 17.150 (13) | 32.784 (16) | 1’16.204 (+0.111) |
| 14 | 18 | Lance Stroll | 26.364 (14) | 17.151 (14) | 32.744 (13) | 1’16.259 (+0.110) |
| 15 | 12 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | 26.443 (16) | 17.166 (15) | 32.754 (15) | 1’16.363 (+0.162) |
| 16 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | 26.506 (17) | 17.201 (17) | 32.722 (12) | 1’16.429 (+0.150) |
| 17 | 5 | Gabriel Bortoleto | 26.423 (15) | 17.220 (19) | 32.801 (17) | 1’16.444 (+0.072) |
| 18 | 30 | Liam Lawson | 26.548 (18) | 17.191 (16) | 32.913 (18) | 1’16.652 (+0.442) |
| 19 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | 26.678 (19) | 17.206 (18) | 33.114 (19) | 1’16.998 (+0.149) |
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Field performance
This is the fourth race weekend on the revised configuration of the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne. The teams’ lap time gains have been quite consistent over that time.
How close will next year’s radically different cars get to the new benchmark set by Norris today?
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2025 Australian Grand Prix
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baasbas
15th March 2025, 16:09
Well, I think this makes clear Tsunoda was the best then. I’ll have to exclude both McLaren drivers because they did peak on their ultimate lap, too much of that was down to both of them fumbling their first attempt.
frood19 (@frood19)
16th March 2025, 1:24
Who cares when anyone did any lap? The only thing that matters is the grid – and actually the only thing that really matters is the points race.
erikje (@erikje)
15th March 2025, 16:32
Ferrari are historically not the best in wet weather. This looks like they’ve had to increase the downforce levels and sacrifice today for a more competitive tomorrow.
Their problem is the other teams seem to have a much stronger wet/dry crossover meaning Ferrari have had to sacrifice today just to be 3rd/4th fastest tomorrow.
Let’s wait and see but I do expect Ferrari to be much closer on fully dry weekends.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
15th March 2025, 16:53
It might be that LeClerc isn’t the best in wet weather, but if they are really getting to grips with the tires and the balance of the car, that might not be a thing anymore.
Davethechicken
15th March 2025, 17:07
Agree erikje. Looks like both Ferrari and Red Bull have a wet weather set up. Either that or what on earth have they been doing the past year, if they have only managed 0.4 seconds on last years qualifying times with all the upgrades and research.
Aquila_GD
15th March 2025, 16:35
Interedting that Hamilton sector times put together were quite high but I feel that was unreachable today given the drop the tyres had in last sector.
His best lap sector came when he had average first and second sectors.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
15th March 2025, 16:59
It takes a bit of time to adjust to a new instrument. These guys are the best (for the most part) because of their level of finesse / coordination / studying. Lots of people could hop in to an F1 car and keep it from stalling, not many can play it w/ perfect unison (the rhythm of the circuit / conditions, the car, the rhythm/trend of the tires) or rather in legato !
baasbas
15th March 2025, 18:16
@Aquila_GD
With the situation in Q today many drivers had tires not holding on through a complete lap. So they could have experimented with leaving some time in sector 1 and 2 to get a better sector 3. So I agree, we can’t draw resolute conclusions from these stats because it could result in an unachievable theoretical best.
MichaelN
15th March 2025, 22:49
While I’m all for criticizing Pirelli, these tyres will be used for many laps tomorrow. It’s the drivers fault for pushing them out of the range by being too fast in the first two sectors.
Now ideally we wouldn’t have to watch F1 drivers struggle with this so much. The Pirelli tyres are genuinely bad, but that’s nothing new. These teams have so much engineers, they should be able to find an optimal balance between pace and the length of the lap.