Hamilton at Ferrari – his personal quest for success, and the internal battle with Leclerc – is one of the dominant narratives at the start of this season.
Another is whether Norris can deliver on his ambition to mount a season-long title challenge from the off, rather than having to play catch-up – which he had to try to do last year because McLaren did not start on Red Bull’s level.
In the end in Melbourne, McLaren did deliver on their potential, but not without a few scary moments.
Facing a tougher challenge from Red Bull and Max Verstappen than they – and the four-time champion himself – had expected, Norris and Oscar Piastri both made mistakes on their first laps in the final part of qualifying.
That put them under pressure on their last runs – lacking a competitive first lap always makes finding the right balance of risk and reward on that all-important final lap much more difficult, because the penalty of making a mistake is so much greater.
For home favourite Piastri, this was bad enough – he was fourth after his first run. Norris, though, was 10th, having had his lap deleted for exceeding track limits.
Both absolutely nailed it. Piastri, hoping to become the first Australian to win his home grand prix in F1, improved by a second, knocking Verstappen from the top, and Norris did even better, pipping his team-mate by 0.084secs.
Norris said. “It’s a track where you’ve got to commit. You know what your target is, and once you turn in you’re kind of hoping for the best in a lot of cases. You want to take those risks.
“Obviously, I took too many on my first lap and got track limits, so I was in a difficult position knowing how much risk I wanted to take. But I put it together well. It was just a clean lap, no mistakes, and that was enough. So happy. A perfect way to start the season.”
Source link : https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/c3e4wwj1jxko
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Publish date : 2025-03-15 10:23:55
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