Albert Park Circuit, Saturday, 7 March

Find out what happened during FP3 and Qualifying in Melbourne, and get the thoughts of McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Team Principal Andrea Stella.

The first Qualifying session of the 2026 F1 season saw the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team secure the third row, after a much-interrupted session ended with Oscar P5 and Lando P6. This result is a realistic reflection of where we expected to be in the early-season pecking order.

FP3 at lunchtime was delayed while barrier repairs were taking place, but the session ran to its full hour, with both drivers running exclusively on the Soft tyre, doing Qualifying sims that left Oscar P4 and Lando P8.

The potential for unforced errors during Qualifying at the start of the season is always high, and the team were happy to see the drivers both progress through the early sessions without incident: Oscar P2 and Lando P4 in Q1; Oscar P4 and Lando P6 in Q2. Both drivers got through each session using a single set of Soft tyres, the Pirelli C5 proving durable enough for multiple runs.

Q3 was soon red-flagged, after a bizarre incident in which Lando hit a cooling fan left on track by Antonelli. Lando’s front wing sustained damage and required checks and running repairs in the garage before he was able to proceed. However, on his final run, the damaged front-wing endplate failed, resulting in a loss of performance which may well have cost the World Champion some positions.

We’ve learned a great deal more about the MCL40 today, and have work to do overnight to put that to good use and get us into the most competitive shape for tomorrow’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Oscar Piastri

"A reasonable Qualifying session today. It was pretty smooth and we’re about where we thought we would be in the pack, but we were just lacking a bit of performance. I think P3 was on the cards today, but we’re still learning on every run with these new cars so there was still some lap time out there. A good base to build from and we’ll see what we can do to get on the podium tomorrow."

Lando Norris

"Overall, I think P6 is a reasonable starting position for tomorrow, given some of the issues we’ve had coming into Qualifying. I’m not happy about P6, and I do think P3 was doable, given we lost some performance after hitting debris. But, having missed a lot of time in FP1 yesterday, alongside some of the other challenges we’ve been dealing with so far this weekend, it’s not a bad starting position. We’re in the mix, which is where we wanted to be, so we’ll prepare for tomorrow and focus on doing what we can to move forward."

Andrea Stella

Team Principal

"Today’s Qualifying results in decent starting positions for tomorrow’s Grand Prix. Lando and Oscar did well in extracting what they could from the MCL40, resulting in a reasonable P5 and P6 result.

"The team executed the sessions well, and we qualified in line with our expectations at this stage of the season. Both drivers also performed consistently throughout, and on Lando’s side we believe he suffered a small loss of performance from the front wing damage caused by the debris on track.

"The main takeaway from today is that we need to do some work to generate more power and extract more performance from the power unit. Mercedes’ performance today shows there’s more to find, so we will work collaboratively with HPP to become more competitive. Tonight, we will review across the board and ensure we set ourselves up as well as possible for the first race of the season."