Lando Norris has snatched pole position away from hometown hero Oscar Piastri in the dying seconds of qualifying to take McLaren’s first front-row lockout around Albert Park since 2012.

Qualifying saw scorching hot conditions and some drivers fail to handle the heat.

Ollie Bearman crashed for the second time this weekend in free practice 3 and therefore failed to get the car working for a competitive time to be set. Haas looked well off the pace with Esteban Ocon joining his teammate on the back row of the grid.

Liam Lawson in the Red Bull could only manage 18th and told The Roar after the session that progress with Red Bull’s car had been made but reflected on the difficulty of scoring points after Saturday’s disappointment.

“The car was in a better window which was positive, just not doing the laps made it pretty tough,” Lawson said.

“Obviously where we are starting it’ll be very very tough tomorrow.”

Kimi Antonelli didn’t fare much better and explained why he just missed out on progressing to the second stage.

“I was losing quite a bit of time on the straights first of all because the floor was scrubbing on the track,” Antonelli said.

“I lost quite a bit of aero load because obviously the floor was not aligned because one part was on the tarmac scratching so definitely was quite unfortunate.”

Qualifying two was a fairly innocuous session with Kick Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto doing well to make the session in first place, beating veteran Nico Hulkenberg but he did run wide at the end of the session. Fellow rookie Isack Hadjar was the highest rated in the session finishing 11th in a great result for the Frenchman.

Both Aston Martins will start behind Hadjar and showed to be indifferent in terms of their pace behind an Alpine, both Racing Bulls and both Williams. Australia’s Jack Doohan was unfortunate to be shown the door in 14th.

Jack Doohan all smiles (Photo by Michael Potts/BSR Agency/Getty Images)

A late yellow flag was shown for Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton spinning, curtailing any chance of the Aussie getting close to his teammate. Nonetheless, Doohan showed positives and he was happy to have shown performance the first time out.

“Yeah, it was good. Q1 was strong Q2 was looking strong as well,” Doohan told The Roar.

“I think, you know, we were confident for Q3. Just got unlucky with the yellow flag with Lewis which brought a close to our chances of that.

But all in all, you know, it was looking very strong. Even on that lap, we were two tens up before that happened and that was out of our control.

“So I think we did everything we could to position ourselves well and now we just have to turn our heads and look forward to tomorrow.”

The final part of qualifying saw Williams and Racing Bulls position themselves strongly for points on Sunday with Yuki Tsunoda achieving fifth and equalling the Red Bull junior team’s best qualifying performance with Max Verstappen for Torro Rosso in 2016.

Alex Albon will start just behind him in sixth, beating last year’s winner Carlos Sainz in their first teammate battle of 2025. Ferrari wasn’t as competitive with Hamilton struggling to adjust to his new machinery, managing only eighth and Charles Leclerc behind Albon and Tsunoda in seventh.

The top ten shootout had shades of 2014’s Australian Grand Prix qualifying, with Australian hopes dashed in the final seconds. Oscar Piastri will start second to Lando Norris after being less than a tenth behind his teammate, mirroring Daniel Ricciardo’s close shave to pole against Hamilton over a decade ago.

Piastri was relaxed as he spoke about the potential to make history on Sunday.

“It would be really special to achieve (Australia’s first home Grand Prix win). I’m not setting my sights too firmly on that,” Piastri said.

“Obviously, we’ve got a lot of work to do to maximise the race tomorrow and see what the weather does first. But it would be very special.

“To have an Aussie on the podium, it hasn’t been done in a while, so that would be a good start. If I can stand on the top step, I’ll do everything I can to achieve that. Putting national pride aside, I want to do it for myself as well.”

Piastri will have to contend with Norris in front, and Verstappen, who is a wet weather specialist behind making the task difficult for the Melburnian.

It’s all to play for on Sunday at Albert Park as we wait to see who opens the season by lifting the Sir Jack Brabham Trophy and getting on the front foot.