F1 Qualifying Results: McLarens DESTROY Verstappen in Red Bull disaster session

McLaren finally showed their true pace on Saturdya at the Australian Grand Prix, with Lando Norris beating the closest non-papaya driver by nearly four tenths of a second to claim the first pole position of the season.

Max Verstappen will start behind Norris and his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, but appeared relatively happy with his performance after some hard work from his engineers overnight.

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Liam Lawson was knocked out of qualifying in his first session as a senior Red Bull driver, having been off the pace all weekend.

The Kiwi driver only set the 16th and 17th fastest times in FP1 and FP2 before being kept off the track for most of FP3 with a power unit issue, and was driving scruffily with his twitchy Red Bull, which he could only put 18th on the grid.

After being overlooked for promotion to the Red Bull senior team over the winter, Yuki Tsunoda made a real statement by putting his Racing Bulls car fifth on the grid – alongside Alex Albon, and ahead of both Ferraris.

Ollie Bearman's nightmare weekend continued, radioing in to his team about a gearbox issue and being forced to pit before completing his outlap.

Having crashed in FP1 and been forced out of running in FP2 due to the damage, Bearman spun on his first flying lap in FP3 and spent the rest of the session in the garage.

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F1 Qualifying Results: Australian Grand Prix 2025

Eliminated in Q2

Eliminated in Q1

How does F1 Qualifying work?

The qualifying session is split into three finite windows, which provide a dramatic prelude to Sunday's race.

The bottom five drivers are eliminated at the end of Q1, with a further five eliminated after Q2.

Then, Q3 gives us a shootout between the remaining 10 drivers in the battle for positions at the front of the grid.

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