2026 Australian Grand Prix - [QUALIFYING] discussion thread
ROUND 1: 🇦🇺 Australia
FORMULA 1 QATAR AIRWAYS AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2026
Weekend Schedule
Click here to view the schedule in your local timezone
- Practice 1: Friday, 02:30 CET | 01:30 UTC
- Practice 2: Friday, 06:00 CET | 05:00 UTC
- Practice 3: Saturday, 02:30 CET | 01:30 UTC
- Qualifying: Saturday, 06:00 CET | 05:00 UTC
- Race: Sunday, 05:00 CET | 04:00 UTC
Circuit stats & Tyres
- First Grand Prix: 1996
- Number of laps: 58
- Circuit Length: 5.278 km
- Race Distance: 306.124 km
- Lap record: 1:19.813 Charles Leclerc (2024)
- 2025 Pole: Lando Norris (1:15.096)
- 2025 Fastest Lap: Lando Norris (1:22.167)
- 2025 winner: Lando Norris
- Pirelli Tyres: C3 (Hard) ⚪, C4 (Medium) 🟡, C5 (Soft) 🔴
36 replies
The Red bull second seat curse strikes again. Verstappen out 20th, Hadjar in 3rd.
At some point you have to wonder if the car is just undrivable by anyone but Hadjar.
Watching that debris shatter by Norris' car was quite mesmerizing. Broke beautifully into hundreds of pieces.
Looks like 3d printed cf parts. Stiff but brittle
Truly pulverised lol
"I hit a lot of debris"
No, Lando, you created a lot of debris from a single piece
Those Cadillacs are nowhere.
Unfortunate that Williams weren't able to fix the issues on Sainz's car.
Caddy will learn what it takes to turn the car up in quali. Their main goal isn't to blow the car up in quali. They want to finish the race and get some useful data.
Fair dinkum lap indeed. Antonelli got that divine intervention with Verstappen's crash. Toto with a huge smile on his face.
Was hoping to see Hamilton higher up the order.
Lindblad and Hadjar with an impressive quali session.
If those practice starts on the grid were any indication it might not take him long to make up some positions.
The difference between Merc and the rest is staggering.
There will be a storm of development this year, they need to make the most of it early, as it'll be a different pecking order later on
Also, this is just qualifying
And we're off 🏎️💨
Well, Max is.
Can't remember the last time I saw Verstappen crash like that. So bizarre.
I mean, I'm not a Max fan at all, but that definitely didn't look like driver error.
With how much negative torque is coming from MGU this year I expect teams will need a few more rounds to figure out car balance under braking.
There was a discussion about NOT getting the battery to 100% too, as you then unexpectedly loose breaking as the battery can't charge.
Or maybe you don't lose braking but instead it falls back to the hydraulic disc calipers and those aren't perfectly equal in braking force to the generator brake. Possibly in Max' case they were a tad stronger, enough to spin him around instantly
Looks like the rest of the cars have it relatively figured out though. At the beginning if testing you saw a lot more cars struggling to brake than now. Maybe it was a very unfortunate error in Max car system.
Oh yeah didn't mean to imply driver error. Just stunned seeing his car go off like that.
I'm liking the way these cars are not glued to the track. Looks tough as hell to find the edge, shaking up for a good season I think
I don’t really like that there is regeneration going on in fast corners instead of going pretty flat out.
Yeah seeing and hearing “super clipping” where the car goes so down on power they are downshifting towards the end of the straight well before the braking zone
Yeah, they gotta get these batteries like 30% bigger I think that would help with the straight line suffering. And a V8.
Spa will be interesting through eu rouge
Imagine 130R (It's called 130R because you drive at 130kph)
Damn, I switched out antonelli, probably could have kept him in.
My fantasy team is a bit of a mess. They did a much better job of the starting prices this year.
The starting prices are sideways IMO with alpine, williams and aston lagging. The sharp end of the midfield are some the cheapest drivers right now
Lindblad off to a good start in Q1.
What a horrible day at Merc
Huh? One two ain't bad
Let's go Hadjar!
Merc back?
Are hulks steering wheel lights showing battery charge as well as revs?
Oh noooooooo ... what a shame