Charles Leclerc finished the first qualifying of the 2026 Formula 1 season in a positive way. In the Australian GP, without major problems, the Monegasque managed to advance to Q3 and will start from fourth place on the second row.
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The session had some red flag interruptions. The first happened in Q1 after a crash by Max Verstappen with seven minutes to go, while the second came because of a part that detached from Kimi Antonelli’s car and Lando Norris ended up hitting it.
In the end, nothing hindered the competitor who, with a time of 1min19s327 on the soft tire, managed to secure the second row of the grid in Melbourne in Formula 1.
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“Today there were some challenges, as was to be expected for the first qualifying session with these new cars. We had a problem with the power distribution in Q2, which was resolved as soon as we returned to the pits. We will use what we learned today for the next qualifying,” he said.
“It’s difficult to make predictions now. It’s the first race weekend of a new regulatory cycle and a championship that will be won by development. This race is just beginning. We are very focused on this and we will extract everything we have from our current package. It will be interesting to see how all the teams manage the race tomorrow,” he added.
Read more F1: Norris expects competitive McLaren at the Australian GP
