Australian race fans will have plenty to occupy them when the F1 circus comes to Melbourne over the coming days, with Melbourne’s Oscar Piastri set to tackle the Albert Park track for the first time while Max Verstappen seeks to continue his seemingly unstoppable march to a third world title. The cars will take to the track when the first practice session runs from 12.30pm to 1.30pm (AEDT) on Friday. His McLaren might be one of the worst cars in the field, but Piastri gave a great illustration of his talent when he managed to qualify eighth on the grid for the year’s second race in Saudi Arabia. He hasn’t lapped the Albert Park Circuit in an F1 car yet and even if he does qualify well, the British team are struggling badly for race pace and are suffering reliability issues, so just finishing in the points would be a big win. Carlos Sainz had a horror race after struggling in qualifying, falling from ninth on the grid to 14th from the start before losing control and beaching his car in the gravel on just the second lap.

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