Piastri fastest, disaster for Bearman and Lawson in final practice at Albert Park

Hometown hero Oscar Piastri heads into qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix in a strong position, after finishing fastest in the final practice around Albert Park.

The Aussie set a benchmark of 1:15.921, 0.039s ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell with Max Verstappen of Red Bull in third.

Charles Leclerc was fourth for Ferrari, ahead of F1 debutant Kimi Antonelli in fifth in the second Mercedes.

Carlos Sainz continued a strong showing for Williams in sixth, followed by teammate Alex Albon in seventh.

Lewis Hamilton finished his third practice session for Ferrari in eighth, ahead of Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsunoda and Lando Norris rounding out the top ten.

Jack Doohan continued a tough Albert Park debut, finishing only 15th, and three places behind Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly.

It was a disastrous session for Ollie Bearman – who after crashing out of Friday’s FP2 session lasted all of two minutes, after dropping his left wheel onto the grass and beaching his car in the gravel on the exit of turn 10.

Red flags were brought out for the Haas to allow it to be recovered to the pits – causing a nine minute delay to proceedings.

The 19 year-old, who made his F1 debut in Saudi Arabia last year substituting for Carlos Sainz at Ferrari, goes into qualifying up against the odds after only managing just over 13 laps of running around Albert Park.

Kiwi Liam Lawson, on his Red Bull main team debut this weekend also had a tough final practice session, managing only two laps on account of a pneumatic issue with the air system of the power unit onboard his RB21 car.

Qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix gets underway at 4:00pm AEDT Saturday.