Defending champion Max Verstappen was 'suprised' after he secured the third-place in the season opening qualifying at the Australian GP.
Verstappen and his Red Bull had a low-key start to the season in the three practice sessions as he was kept at an arm's distance from the pole position with his car lacking the pace. The Dutchman was six-tenths slower than the pace-setter Charles Leclerc of Ferrari in the second practice session.
Verstappen took third place in the Saturday qualifying as the McLarens locked the front grid with Lando Norris taking the first place, while Oscar Piastri came second. Verstappen was asked whether his car has picked up pace and has progressed during the weekend. "Yeah, I think so. We had a bit of a tough start. This has never really been a good track to us as well, so it took a bit of time to understand how we can improve the situation, and we did that today," Verstappen replied.
"Honestly, I’m quite surprised to be sitting here after yesterday. I felt confident; I felt at one with the car. Of course clearly we’re still lacking a bit of pace, but overall happy with the laps in qualifying.
"[I] tried to really extract everything. The tyres are quite sensitive around here as well with all these high-speed corners, but I’m happy to be here," he said.
Hamilton to start Ferrari debut from eighth
Meanwhile, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton secured the eighth spot in the qualifying in his debut race for Ferrari. Hamilton suffered a spin on Q2 and ended being on eighth on Saturday's qualifying, right behind teammate Leclerc.
Hamilton said that he is still learning about the car. "It doesn’t feel natural, it’s been challenging," he said after the Qualifying session. "Just the normal set-up changes you make, it’s difficult to say too much but there are all new tools that I’m still trying to get my head around and understand exactly where it impacts the car.
"I feel good that I got pretty much everything from the car in the end. I think there’s probably still a couple of tenths left.
"I definitely didn’t expect us to be as far off as we were but to be that close to Charles in the end in my first Qualifying session in this car… I really am still learning this car.
"I’ve been chipping away at it all weekend and fine-tuning it, finding new tools that we didn’t get to test in testing that we’ve never used before. I think we’ve done a good job," he added.