Lando Norris secured the best average qualifying result of the season on his way to a maiden F1 drivers\u2019 title, while Yuki Tsunoda suffered a shocker compared to team-mate Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n
Across the 24 grands prix, Norris managed an average qualifying position of 2.96, making him the only driver below a 3.0 average.<\/p>\n
With overtaking having been difficult, Norris\u2019 supreme qualifying performances proved to be a huge factor in his defeat of Oscar Piastri and Verstappen in the championship.<\/p>\n
Piastri and Verstappen recorded the second-and third-best average qualifying positions, at 3.04 and 3.5 respectively. Fourth and fifth were occupied by George Russell and Charles Leclerc, although both were comfortably adrift of the top three.<\/p>\n
In 2025, there was a significant gap between the top five in qualifying and the rest of the field. Mercedes\u2019 Kimi Antonelli had the sixth-best average qualifying result, although at 8.58 it was over three positions worse than Leclerc in fifth.<\/p>\n
Antonelli finished ahead of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, whose three consecutive Q1 exits at the end of the season dropped his average qualifying position to a poor 9.04.<\/p>\n
The top 10 was completed by Isack Hadjar, Fernando Alonso, and Carlos Sainz, despite the Williams driver having endured a poor first half of the year at the Grove-based outfit.<\/p>\n
Tsunoda, who has been dropped by Red Bull to a reserve and test driver role for 2026, endured a shocking qualifying campaign across the season.<\/p>\n
The Japanese driver recorded the 12th-best average qualifying position with an abysmal figure of 12.58 \u2014 a full nine positions worse than Verstappen. It is an unacceptable statistic for any Red Bull driver and highlights a possible reason behind Hadjar\u2019s promotion.<\/p>\n
The worst average qualifying result of the season belonged to Alpine\u2019s Franco Colapinto, with a score of 16.94 \u2014 almost a full position worse than Lance Stroll in 19th.<\/p>\n
Check out the average qualifying results below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris secured the best average qualifying result of the season on his way to a maiden F1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3518,3521,3519,3522,3520,3517,3515,3513,3516,3514,111,139,69,3512,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-202112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","9":"tag-f1-calendar","10":"tag-f1-live","11":"tag-f1-results","12":"tag-f1-standings","13":"tag-ferrari","14":"tag-formula-1","15":"tag-lewis-hamilton","16":"tag-max-verstappen","17":"tag-motorsport","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-racing","22":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}