The first qualifying of the 2025 season ended with an all-McLaren front row. Lando Norris took pole position at the end of a very closely fought final phase. With a time of 1’15”096, the Englishman beat his Australian team mate, Oscar Piastri by 84 thousandths of a second.

This was Norris’ tenth pole position, his second in a row, given that he also secured the number one grid slot at the final race of last year in Abu Dhabi. Tomorrow will see a McLaren start the Australian Grand Prix from pole for the 12th time, the previous occasion dating back to 2012 when, with Lewis Hamilton fastest ahead of Jenson Button, it was another one-two for the Woking squad.

The Pirelli Pole Position Award was presented to Norris by Kyle Chalmers. The Australian swimmer was the 100 metre freestyle champion at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and then took silver in the same discipline at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, a feat he repeated three years later in Paris. He has a total of nine Olympic medals to his name between individual and relay races: one gold, three silver and five bronze. In four world champions he amassed a further five gold, four silver and three bronze. Two days ago, he and his fiancée, the Norwegian Ingeborg Løynin, also a swimmer, announced that they are expecting their first child.

THE DAY ON TRACK
The third free practice session saw the Soft get plenty of use, although the Hard also carved out a role for itself. Seven drivers from four teams (Stroll and Alonso, Aston Martin, Gasly, Alpine, Hadjar and Tsunoda, Racing Bulls and Albon and Sainz, Williams) did one or more runs on a set of C3, following on from the Mercedes pair who used the hardest compound in yesterday’s free practice. Therefore, tomorrow almost half the grid will only have one set of C3 available. It’s worth noting that four other drivers, the McLaren and Ferrari pairs, used a set of Hards but only for a scrubbing-in lap. However, Hamilton and Leclerc, along with Stroll and Alonso also did this with a set of Mediums.

In qualifying, 18 drivers only ran the Softs, the exceptions being George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, who opted to start Q1 on the Medium. Today’s pole position time was 819 thousandths faster than last year’s, when Verstappen posted a 1’15”915. Norris’ lap was almost four tenths faster than Pirelli’s simulation prior to the event, based on information supplied by all the teams.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING
“A very close and spectacular qualifying session, a statement supported by the data, with the 15 qualified drivers in Q2 separated by a little over seven tenths, seven teams in the top ten and nine in Q2. The final run in Q3 was very exciting with pole position changing hands four times.

“Tomorrow looks like being very unpredictable, firstly because the current forecast is for heavy rain in the morning, which is due to weaken in the afternoon. Therefore, we could be confronted with three possible scenarios. The first is for a race run entirely in the wet, in which case anything could happen. For us, it could be an opportunity to see the new extreme wet tyre in action, modified this year with a slightly different tread design.

The second is that it’s run entirely in the dry, in which case, based on the much lower level of graining compared to previous years, that we have seen over the past two days, the one-stop could be the quickest solution featuring the Medium and Hard. The C3 and C4 have both shown almost zero degradation with very similar performance levels. Furthermore, even if the race is run entirely in the dry, we need to consider the possibility that the track surface condition will have been reset because of earlier rain and lower temperatures, conditions that are more likely to lead to graining. In this case, the two-stop could be the most popular option, once again featuring the Medium and Hard. The third scenario is a race run in mixed conditions, starting on a wet or damp track requiring intermediate tyres, prior to a switch to slicks. In this case, the drivers could try to extend the Intermediate stint as much as possible before switching to the Hard. The Soft could only come into play if the switch to slicks occurred in the closing stages. Whatever happens, it looks like being a fun afternoon!"

FORMULA 2
Joshua Durksen dominated the Sprint race, taking the lead at the start and keeping it all the way to the chequered flag. The AIX Racing driver did a great job of managing the two restarts, fending off reigning F3 champion, Leonardo Fornaroli (Invicta Racing) who was right on his gearbox for almost the entire race. The Italian also had to defend, in his case from Luke Browning (Hitech TGR) who rounded off the first podium of the season.

As for the tyres, all drivers ran the Medium, but its performance is hard to evaluate because of several neutralisations that interrupted proceedings. The drivers were therefore able to manage any overheating of the rear tyres and the laps spent behind the Safety Car allowed the tyres to recover some of their performance.

FORMULA 3
Santiago Ramos (Van Amersfoort Racing) secured his maiden win in the FIA Formula 3 championship in a race which featured several neutralisations. The Mexican managed to fend off Hitech TGR’s Norwegian driver, Martinius Stenshorne, all the way to the end. Rounding off the podium was Poland’s Roman Bilinski (Rodin Motorsport) making a brilliant debut in this category.

This race also saw the debut of the new generation of F3 car, fitted with 16” Pirelli tyres developed specifically for it. It was the first real opportunity for the young drivers to go head to head and try to make the most of this new package, with all the unknowns involved in this situation. The many Safety Cars made the task even trickier, but the race was certainly spectacular and exciting, with plenty of overtaking and close battles.