F1 pundit pinpoints McLaren's key strength over Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes at the F1 Australian GP qualifying

F1 pandit Mark Hughes has pointed out that McLaren had a key tire advantage over its rivals, Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes during the 2025 Australian Grand Prix qualifying session on Saturday. The British team blew away the field over one lap at the end of the session as it locked out the front row with Lando Norris leading his teammate, Oscar Piastri, ahead of four-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen for the main race.

The Woking-based outfit was the bookies' favorite going into the qualifying session given its performance in the practice sessions and the official preseason testing leading up to the front-row lockout.

Although the two drivers encountered some tricky moments in the Q3 Session when Piastri made a mistake on turn 11 and Norris's lap time was deleted, they both made amends on their respective final runs. In his column for The Race, Hughes mentioned that the British team had a key advantage in terms of tire temperature over its rivals at the Albert Park Circuit.

Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari fought neck-and-neck with the reigning world champion constructor in the first two sectors but withered away in the final sector as they struggled with rear tire overheating. The F1 pundit wrote:

"Getting the preparation right so the fronts are not too cool at the beginning of the lap, the rears are not too hot at the end, is tricky. Every car - even the McLaren - was suffering with this to a greater or lesser extent.

With the McLaren, it was to a lesser extent. With the others, it was to a greater. The McLaren was nibbling at the edges of that problem, but everyone else had fallen deep into it by sector three."

The iconic British team had an advantage of 0.385s over the next non-McLaren car at the end of the qualifying session.

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McLaren driver speaks on the intricacies of working the tires after 1-2 in qualifying

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri said it was "tricky" for everyone to manage the tires on the track as they were "pushing the limits" during the qualifying session.

In the post-quali press conference, the Aussie reflected on the MCL39's underlying pace and said:

"This weekend it's been difficult at points, but nothing unmanageable or unfixable. It looked pretty tricky out there for everybody, I think, as we're pushing the limits of these tires.

I think for a while now they’ve been pretty sensitive to how much load all the cars are putting through them. It’s not as easy as you’d like, but the underlying pace is definitely there, as shown."

Despite having the pace in the dry conditions, the world champion's advantage could be minimized or erased in the wet conditions on Sunday if there is a downpour as predicted by the forecast.