Mercedes star George Russell has vowed to “make hay while the sun shines” after living up to the early hype to claim pole position for the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in a front-row lock-out for the Silver Arrows alongside young teammate Kimi Antonelli.

Pegged as the pre-season championship favourite, Russell fired the first shot for Mercedes as he secured his place at the front of the grid for Sunday’s opening race of the season at Albert Park.

As Formula 1’s sweeping new regulations made their qualifying debut, Russell claimed his first pole position in Australia with his 1:18.518 lap of the lakeside street circuit.

Russell topped all three parts of qualifying to finish almost three-tenths of a second ahead of Antonelli, with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar taking third place on the grid.

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Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and McLaren’s Aussie star Oscar Piastri rounded out the top five.

Mercedes produced a Herculean effort to repair Antonelli’s car in time for qualifying after his big smash earlier in final practice to give the Italian teenager the chance to seize second place on the grid.

Antonelli later avoided a grid penalty after Mercedes was fined 7,500 Euros ($12,387) for releasing his car onto the track from the garage in an unsafe condition.

Mercedes and Russell have been widely tipped as favourites for the 2026 title with the Silver Arrows predicted to have come up with the best package under the sport’s new regulations – and the opening qualifying session only added weight to that pre-season talk.

While Russell had played down the title chatter leading up to the opening race of the season, he admitted after taking pole Mercedes had to cash-in while they had an edge on the field.

“You definitely have to make hay while the sun shines because my mentality coming into this race is, if we started on the front foot, it doesn’t guarantee anything,” Russell said.

“If we start on the back foot, it doesn’t guarantee anything.

“And the rate of improvement from everyone at this time of the year is going to be huge.

“I’ve said it a few times, the 2022 season, with Ferrari, three races in they looked clearly the dominant team and were going to easily win the championship, and they weren’t close.

“So, we’ve got to keep on pushing, keep on working hard, and it isn’t just about these upcoming races.

“It’s about making sure we’ve got a good car for these coming years because that’s where we failed in ‘22.”

The pole was the eighth of Russell’s career and the Brit’s first since Singapore last season.

Russell’s best result at the Australian Grand Prix had been a pair of third-place finishes in 2022, in his first season with Mercedes, and last year.

While he is clearly the man to beat based on his qualifying performance, Russell said the unknowns with the new cars in race trim mean he could not afford to get ahead of himself.

“I think the goal for us right now is to try and make the finish line because we honestly don’t know what’s going to happen,” Russell said.

“The most simple things that we’ve been dealing with over the past years, such as pit stops, are now really challenging with all the procedures, getting the engine in the right window, the turbo speedspinning enough, the battery not too low but not too high, race starts, we’ve seen out challenge.

“So I think the goal for us was just to have a clean weekend. Of course, we want to win, we want to be on board, we want to dominate the weekend, but it’s a really long season and we need to get through tomorrow and just have a clean race because at any point you can stumble and that could be the end of your day.”

Russell always had faith in the potential of the Mercedes and said it “came alive” for him in qualifying.

“It was a great day. We knew there’s a lot of potential in the car, but until we get to this first Saturday of the season, you never know,” Russell said.

“But it really came alive this afternoon, especially as the track temps cooled. We know we sort of tend to favour those conditions.

“And also really happy to have Kimi here next to me as well because it’s been such hard work from all the team to deliver this car and they did an amazing job in the garage as well today. So all in all a really good day.”

Antonelli praised the Mercedes mechanics as the “heroes” after their effort in repairing his car in time for qualifying after his practice smash.

The 19-year-old ripped the wheels off his Mercedes when he lost control and slammed into a concrete barrier on the exit of turn two, less than 15 minutes before the end of the session.

There was more drama to come for Antonelli with stewards investigating – and then fining Mercedes – for releasing his car in an unsafe condition with a duct cooling fan still attached at the start of Q2, which then dislodged onto the track.

Lando Norris was lucky to avoid major damage to his McLaren after running over the debris.

Antonelli revealed the team in the garage had not even had time to set up his car properly before he was sent out for the first part of qualifying.

“It has been a very, very stressful day,” Antonelli said.

“In FP3 I went into the wall but the mechanics today were the heroes to put the car back on track. We couldn’t even set up the car, we just went out and just managed to put it on the front row.

“Really happy with that. It was not easy. I had to dig deep, but need to have a clean weekend next time because it definitely compromised qualifying a little bit.

“But we have a race tomorrow to look ahead (to) and a good result is possible.”

Originally published as Australian Grand Prix 2026 Day 3: George Russell claims pole position, Oscar Piastri fifth