Norris celebrates pole position in thrilling Australian GP qualifying

Dominika Jordan
Mar 15, 2025, 08:07 AM ET

Lando Norris was beaming with joy after clinching pole position for the Australian Grand Prix, outperforming his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

In a thrilling qualifying session at Melbourne's Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit, Norris registered a lap time of 1m 15.096s in the dying moments of Q3, narrowly beating Piastri by less than a tenth of a second after his initial lap was negated due to track limits.

McLaren is eyeing the top spot in the Teams' Championship, and their drivers are gunning for individual honors. Reflecting on the opening competitive session of the season, Norris remarked, "Very good! It’s the perfect way to start the year. First of all, a big congrats to the team – everyone at McLaren has done an amazing job to continue from where we were at the end of last season, to start with a 1-2."

He continued, "It’s just quali, right? Let’s wait and see tomorrow. I know it’s going to be a tricky race, but today was the perfect way to start."

Currently, weather forecasts predict a wet Sunday in Melbourne, suggesting entirely different conditions than what has been experienced thus far this weekend.

When asked about his confidence heading into the race, Norris responded, "I’m confident that the car’s in a good position, but we’ve also never run in the wet. We know how quick Max and Red Bull are in the rain, so let’s wait and see. [There will be] many opportunities for everyone, but also a lot of new things that we’re going to be learning along the way, so we’ll see tomorrow."

Oscar Piastri, the local hero, had mixed emotions about missing his maiden pole position by a mere 0.084s in front of his home crowd.

"I’m pretty happy," he admitted. "It’s probably one position further back than I would’ve liked, but it’s a great start to the year and great to have the team on the front row. Now we’ll reset and see what tomorrow has in store. I’m pretty happy with how Qualifying went, just not quite enough in Q3, but it’s the start of a long season. A solid start."

When probed about the minor differences that separated the two McLarens, Piastri commented, "I think it’s probably a little bit in a couple of places. I think Sector 3 I lost a little bit of time compared to the lap before from Q2. I also locked up there and went off in the first run of Q3, so I didn’t really want to do that twice. I maybe left a little bit on the table, but I think it was pretty tricky out there for everybody. Q3 at the start looked pretty messy, so I’m just happy to be on the front row and have a good start."

With McLaren occupying the front row and changing weather conditions on the horizon, the Australian Grand Prix promises to deliver an exhilarating start to the 2025 Formula 1 season.