Luke’s Weekend Take – Australian GP 2024

Heading now onto the Saturday sessions we start looking at FP3 where in the first 15 mins we see that only the Red Bull pair and the Ferrari pair were out on track putting in timed laps while other teams were still in the pits or would have come out very early on the session just to scrub a set of Hards ahead of the race tomorrow which would help with the warm up when they put them on.

Mid way through the session we hear Hamilton and his engineer Bono discussing Hamilton’s gap to the top of the timings where at the time Sainz was leading the pack on a set of mediums while Hamilton as 1.3 seconds off with a set of softs. Naturally, Hamilton was quite surprised as to where they were losing the time which Bono replied to him saying 7 tenths on the straights which could have meant that it was a lower engine mode on the Mercedes or that the softs were not performing as well as the mediums.

This seemed to be a shared concern as most drivers complained that the mediums seemed to be quicker but towards the end of the session, we see Mercedes only a tenth off the top of the timings. At the end of the session Leclerc manages to edge Verstappen with just 0.020s and Sainz closely behind in 3^rd. Sainz was also noted by the stewards for a Practice Start infringement to which he got a driver reprimand for later after the session.

Qualifying starts and in Q1 we see Albon first on track and reporting some leaves on track as he gets on his way into qualifying. Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg were noted down by race control for impeding at Turn 13 and Stewards said that they will investigate this after the session. This was not the only incident noted and after the session the stewards will be busy as Pierre Gasly will also be investigated for potentially crossing the pit lane line on the exit which could see the Frenchman in trouble and getting a grid drop ahead of the race tomorrow. On the other side of the garage, we see Esteban Ocon have a brush with the wall at the exit of the last corner and getting a rear puncture which would have put his progress a bit backwards at the start of the session.

Midway through the session we see Red Bull off the pace after the first runs as they seemed to be 5 tenths off the pace with Ferrari up front but after the second runs, they seemed to be much closer but still behind Ferrari. Heartbreak for the Australian fans as we see Daniel Ricciardo put a run quick enough to get out of Q1 and into Q2 but with Ricciardo going wide on Turn 5 meant that his time was deleted giving him an early exit out of qualifying. At the end of Q1 we lose Nico Hulkenberg, Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo and Zhou Guanyu who seemed to pick up some front wing damage somehow. We only lose 4 drivers given Logan Sargeant won’t be driving this weekend.

In Q2 it was all business as usual at the start but towards the end the action started to come in as we see Albon coming into the pits with 3 mins left while he was in P11 meaning he was not going to have a final attempt to get out of Q2 and maybe save some tyres for the race tomorrow. Multiple drivers on the last run try to get out of the elimination zone and Yuki Tsunoda does put a cracking lap in to get into the top 10 which pushed out Hamilton out of the top 10 and out of qualifying, Hamilton had some mistakes on his final lap and the reason why he was pushed out of the top 10 as he couldn’t improve on his time. At the end of Q2 we do lose Lewis Hamilton, Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon.

In Q3 after the 1^st flying laps, we see Max Verstappen taking provisional pole followed by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc setting us up for an exciting qualifying for the 2^nd runs. Fernando Alonso on his 1^st flying lap went wide on Turn 6 and took to the gravel and had to abort the lap and go back to the pits. His teammate Lance Stroll on his only flying lap had a massive moment between Turn 9 and 10 as he had a big snap and had to correct it manging to keep it on the track but cost him some good time as he finished his lap over 1.1 seconds off the pace.

On the 2^nd runs we see Verstappen improve on his earlier lap improving his advantage and Sainz was unable to get ahead of Verstappen while Leclerc abandons his lap as he had a moment in the exit of turn 12 and goes straight to the pits complaining that the car was very difficult to drive and that he was suffering from Understeer then Oversteer and wasn’t sure what happened. In the end then we see Max Verstappen on pole followed by Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, George Russell, Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso form the top 10.

Who do you think will come out on top tomorrow in the race? It looks like we are in for another Max Verstappen easy win but both Red Bull drivers said that they think Ferrari will be a threat in the race, lets wait and see tomorrow.