McLaren Most Improved Qualifying Team

After analyzing this year's qualifying results and comparing them to the 2017 qualifying results in Australia, McLaren are the most improved team.

McLaren was notoriously unhappy with their engine partner Honda last year and finally made the switch to Renault from this season on, leaving Toro Rosso with the services of the Japanese. Interestingly, Toro Rosso is the team that is at the bottom of the list, while McLaren is top. A coincidence?

Fernando Alonso did his hot lap at Albert Park a whopping 1.8 seconds faster than he did it with his Honda-powered car last year. The Spaniard is still seen as one of the drivers on the grid and was visibly frustrated with the McLaren in the years they couldn't even get out of Q1, as he wants to compete at the top every race. He showed that competitiveness this year by impressively finishing fifth, in front of Max Verstappen's Red Bull.

Red Bull is third on the list most-improved, however, coming in 1.6 seconds faster than last year, when the RB13 underperformed massively, with Red Bull's notorious lack of form at the beginning of each season. The team have already shown to be closer to the top this year, in qualifying at least.

To round out the Big Three: Mercedes improved by one second, and Ferrari just 0.6 seconds, suggesting that the Silver Arrows have increased their gap at the top of the spectrum. However, even though Lewis Hamilton qualified first with over six-tenths of a second difference, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel managed to win the race.

The full list of team improvement:

1. McLaren - -1.8s
2. Sauber - -1.7s
3. Red Bull - -1.6s
4. Renault - 1.4s
5. Force India - -1.1s
6. Mercedes - -1.0s
7. Haas - -0.9s
8. Ferrari - -0.6
9. Williams - -0.2s
10. Toro Rosso - +0.04s