Australia. Eventful.
Let’s address the elephant in the room and talk about that Red Bull. Lap 4 and Verstappen’s car is, well, on fire. The slow-motion flame shots might look dramatic, but it turns out the right rear brake just stuck on at lights out – the car basically launches off with its handbrake on. Fixable, but not for this race. Verstappen is out.
An organ down and you’d think Sainz would take his post-op return steady. Incorrect. Lap 2 and he’s stormed past, an albeit limping, Verstappen into P1. Flying round the track he retains the top spot, putting in several fastest laps as he goes, and gains a thoroughly deserved win.
A Ferrari P1 and P2 is closely followed by a McLaren P3 and P4. The Norris Piastri swap goes down like a lead balloon in front of the latter’s home crowd, but Norris’ 30 second lead over the line speaks for itself.
One thing’s for certain: not a good day to be a Mercedes fan. An engine failure for Hamilton sees him retire on Lap 17. Russell puts in a decent performance – several battles with Perez and Alonso see him chasing a top 5 finish. He then parks his Mercedes on its roof in the final lap. Expensive day.
Alonso takes a gamble starting on hards, which pays off thanks to Hamilton. While the frontrunners dive in for early pit stops on their mediums, Alonso stays out and nabs an easy late pit under the virtual safety car following Hamilton’s retirement of his Mercedes. His defence against Russell for P6 in the final few laps is impressive, albeit somewhat dangerous. An upside-down Mercedes isn’t great, so Alonso is given a post-race 20 second penalty. This drops him to P8 but brings his teammate up to P6.
In the only Red Bull car on track, this is Perez’s time to shine. However, while both Mercedes drivers comment on the speed of the car as it flies past them, the Red Bull is unable to penetrate the wall of Ferrari and McLaren and takes P5. The other 1 car team out there is Williams. Poor Sargeant spends the race watching his teammate take his car round the track, following unfixable damage to Albon’s own chassis earlier in the week. Even more tough, Albon drives it considerably better and narrowly misses out on points at P11.
The Haas duo have another good race, picking up points at P9 and P10. As does Tsunoda at P7, while his teammate Ricciardo manages P12. Shock, Sauber have a couple of lengthy pit stops – Bottas’ 30 second stop sees him plummet from top 10 to stone last mid race. He crawls back up to P14, with Zhou behind him. They are sandwiched between the 2 Alpines.
With 10 World Championships between them, Hamilton and Verstappen watch the chequered flag from the side lines.