F1 hometown driver Piastri fastest in final practice ahead of Australian GP qualifying

By Canadian Press on March 14, 2025.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — McLaren’s hometown hero Oscar Piastri led a super-competitive final practice session Saturday for Sunday’s Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix with the Australian just 39 one-thousandths of a second ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell.

The Melbourne-born Piastri traded top times with Russell and Red Bull’s reigning world champion Max Verstappen, who was third-fastest. Verstappen was the benchmark for the first 22 minutes of the session.

Ferrari finished down the order, with second practice’s top man Charles Leclerc fourth, almost three-tenths off the pace, while his teammate Lewis Hamilton was eighth.

Russell’s Mercedes teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli closed out the top five, ahead of both Williams drivers, which again showed stunning pace, with defending Australian champion Carlos Sainz sixth ahead of his teammate Alex Albon.

Haas rookie Oliver Bearman halted final practice just four minutes into the session, with the Brit bringing out the red flags after he lost control of the car at turn 11 and buried the car in the gravel. Red Bull new recruit Liam Lawson also failed to set a lap, with the team stating the issue on his car was a “power unit or power unit system problem on the air side.”

Qualifying was scheduled for later Saturday.

It was the second on-track incident for the 19-year old Bearman this weekend, with the Haas driver going into the wall at the exit of the turn 9/10 chicane during opening practice on Friday. That forced him to sit out the second session with his car stuck in the pits needing repairs.

Australia is Bearman’s fourth F1 weekend after strong stand-in performances last year, including for Ferrari in Saudi Arabia, and Azerbaijan and Brazil for Haas. In Baku last year, the Brit became the first driver to have scored points for two different teams in his first two races.

___

AP Formula 1: https://apnews.com/hub/formula-one

Stewart Bell, The Associated Press