Russell storms to pole as Mercedes lock-out front row in Melbourne

George Russell took an imposing pole position as Mercedes dominated the first qualifying session of a new era of Formula 1 at the Australian Grand Prix. The Briton led team-mate Kimi Antonelli by 0.363 seconds and was 0.785secs clear of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar in third place. Max Verstappen crashed on his first lap to leave a degree of doubt as to the extent of Mercedes’ superiority, but it was an impressive start to a new period of regulations by the former champions. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fourth fastest, with the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris separating him from his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

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Hamilton to get new race engineer for 2026 season

Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer from the 2025 Formula 1 season has been moved to a new role at Ferrari. Riccardo Adami will take over as manager of the Ferrari driver academy and their programme for testing previous cars. A Ferrari statement made no reference to Hamilton by name, saying only: “The appointment of the new race engineer for car number 44 will be announced in due course.”

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