THE AUSTRALIAN GP IN 5 KEY MOMENTS
1 Verstappen prevails in chaotic race
A brief grassy moment for Max Verstappen during the closing stages proved to be one of the least significant incidents in an Australian Grand Prix which finished under Safety Car conditions after being interrupted by three red flags. Quite apart from the shunts which precipitated those interruptions, as Max began waving to the crowd after taking the chequered flag, he found several members of the audience rather closer than expected and on the wrong side of the barriers – but we’ll return to that subject later.
Apart from a brief moment of vulnerability at the first start, this grand prix was another graphic demonstration of the superiority of Red Bull’s RB19. Polesitter Max was unusually cautious – some might even say passive – under braking for Turns 1 and 3, enabling the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton to assert themselves (while Verstappen noisily complained that Hamilton’s move overstepped the mark of what was permissible, the stewards didn’t agree). But once the race proper got under way – after the first red flag – Max blasted past Lewis as soon as DRS was available and was 2s ahead by the end of the lap. Later Max’s team-mate Sergio Pérez breezed past Oscar Piastri with DRS – while the Mclaren was also benefitting from DRS.
The first red flag cost Russell the lead at the end of lap seven when he (along with fourth placed Carlos Sainz) pitted after the Safety Car was deployed to cover the effects of Alex Albon’s Williams snap-oversteering into the barrier at Turn 6. A lap later race control decided there was enough gravel and debris on track to render a complete stoppage prudent. Russell raged, but his race would end with an engine failure on lap 18 of the restarted race.
Hamilton led until Verstappen went by under DRS on lap 12, and from then on it was a case of managing tyres as Max crept well clear while nursing his hard-compound Pirellis. While both RB19S had been prone to front locking during the weekend, Pérez had had the worst of it, going off in qualifying and being forced to start from the pitlane; Verstappen would lose control just once, running onto the grass at the penultimate corner 10 laps from the end to avoid letting “a tiny lock-up” develop into a flat spot. This cost 3.3s but Hamilton’s Mercedes was still a speck in the rearview mirror, even though Lewis was pushing a little to keep third-placed Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin out of DRS range.
On lap 54 Kevin Magnussen tagged the wall at the exit of Turn 2, cracking a wheel rim and leaving carbon debris and most of his Haas’s right-rear tyre in the road. This prompted race control to red-flag the race once more with just three laps to run.
While there were those (including Max) who argued the clear-up could have been managed under Safety Car conditions, the red flag meant
a standing restart – which this time he managed almost perfectly, having completed an extra burnout on his run to the grid at the end of the formation lap. This left him well clear of the chaos which erupted in his wake at Turn 1 as Sainz went in too hot, tagging Alonso into a spin. Behind, Pierre Gasly also overcooked it and collected Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon, bringing out the red flag again.
After a 35-minute delay, the race began again with a rolling restart behind the Safety Car, and with the cars in the order of the grid from the previous restart. While this caused Haas to chafe, it at least meant no more carbon fibre went flying…
2 Sainz speechless, Ferrari pointless
Another frustrating weekend for Ferrari culminated in Carlos Sainz declaring himself unable to talk in the post-race media pen, such was his ire at receiving a five-second penalty for his role in the messy second red-flag restart. Team-mate Charles Leclerc had long since concluded such formalities, since his race lasted just three corners.
Leclerc qualified seventh – behind both Mercedes and Aston Martins as well as Sainz – but came to grief at Turn 3 when he went for a gap which suddenly opened up as cars ahead braked early as a consequence of Lewis Hamilton closing the door on Max Verstappen. He got half way round the outside of Lance Stroll’s Aston but Stroll was then squeezed between the Ferrari and his own team-mate; the resulting contact left Leclerc in the gravel and prompted a brief Safety Car outing.
“I’m obviously frustrated, it’s the worst ever start of a season [for me],” said Leclerc, who has just six points to his name. “I’m not blaming it on Lance. I think it’s a racing incident. But it’s just very frustrating because the result is I’m going home with basically no points.”
This left Sainz as Ferrari’s sole hope of scoring points and the initial prospects were good as he reached fourth from fifth on the grid, usurping Fernando Alonso at the start. But he lost track position by pitting under the Safety Car which followed Alex Albon’s crash, and the ensuing red flag cancelled any tactical advantage he might have gained as a result of the stop.
Low tyre temperatures contributed to Sainz’s tangle with Alonso at the second restart, which led to a five-second penalty – one which had a disproportionately great effect because the race ended behind the Safety Car. So while he lined up fourth for the final restart, he was demoted to 12th.
“I think it’s the most unfair penalty I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said afterwards. “Before talking to you and saying any really bad stuff or bad words, I’d prefer to go back to the stewards, have a conversation with them and maybe I can come back and talk again.”
Even the injured party concurred.
“On lap one [at a restart], it’s always very difficult to judge the grip level, and I think we don’t go intentionally into another car, you know?” said Alonso. “It’s just part of racing. I didn’t see the replay, but for me it feels too hard.”
3 Alpine’s uptown flunk
Much ink has been spilled pre-season in speculating about the trajectory of the relationship between Alpine team-mates Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, given previous bad blood between them. Having contrived to collide with each other at the penultimate restart in Melbourne, thereby kissing goodbye to a double points finish, the duo were surprisingly diplomatic.
It had been a generally positive weekend for the Anglo-french team up until that point, for Gasly had made it through to Q3 while Ocon only missed out by a fraction of a second. And, while Ocon was one of the group disadvantaged by stopping for tyres just before the first red flag, he’d fought his way back into the top 10 – indeed, his pass around the outside of Oscar Piastri at Turn 9 was one of the best-executed passes of the race.
They lined up fifth and 10th for the penultimate restart but Gasly locked up and went over the kerbs at Turn 1 as he tried to avoid Fernando Alonso’s spinning Aston Martin. As he rejoined and tried to take up the racing line at the exit of Turn 2 he failed to observe his team-mate coming up fast around the outside. The tangle put them both in the wall and contributed to the final red flag.
Gasly was already on 10 penalty points and on the cusp of triggering a race ban, but the stewards determined it a racing incident. Equally importantly, perhaps, so too did Pierre’s team-mate.
“A very chaotic restart then, honestly, it could have been any cars I collided with,” said Ocon. “There were cars coming back on the track, obviously Pierre was one of them. But no hard feelings. He came and apologised and, as I said, it could have been anyone.”
Since both cars were thoroughly smashed, they were unable to line up for the final restart and were classified as DNFS.
4 Haas protest rejected
An obvious question to ponder, as the shadows lengthened in Albert Park late on Sunday afternoon, was the grid order for the final restart. This also exercised a number of competitors, most notably Haas, which lodged a protest swiftly after the chequered flag eventually flew.
Though the team didn’t comment publicly on its reason for protesting, it would not require the deductive prowess of Sherlock Holmes to observe that Nico Hülkenberg briefly found himself running fourth on the road when the red flags were displayed in the aftermath of the penultimate restart. The FIA’S decision to run the final restart according to the grid order of the penultimate one, rather than the actual running order at the point of stoppage, pushed Hülkenberg back to seventh. This was because Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll and Sergio Pérez were able to reclaim their previous positions ahead of the Haas.
The reason for doing this is enshrined in the sporting regulations, where Article 57.3 states: “In all cases the order will be taken at the last point at which it was possible to determine the position of all cars. All such cars will then be permitted to resume the sprint session or the race.”
As with last year’s British GP, which was stopped on the opening lap, not all cars had completed a timing sector so there was no conclusive evidence of the running order. Haas contended it should have
been possible to establish a running order based on positions crossing Safety Car line 2, which is between the pit exit and Turn 1. This would likely have put Hülkenberg in sixth rather than seventh.
The stewards explained themselves thus: “This determination needed to be done in the context of a timed race event and therefore the decision of race control and the race director needed to be made promptly; with the exercise of appropriate discretion and by using the most appropriate information available to them at the time.”
5 Promoters summoned to the stewards
In the context of F1 race promoters having to pursue policies of continuous improvement to justify their places on the calendar, perhaps the stewards’ office at Albert Park should be fitted with a revolving door next year to help deal with the number of visitors. Sunday night in Melbourne was a particularly busy one for the officials, given the number of incidents during and immediately after the grand prix; even the race promoter was summoned to explain itself (via document number 50 in the FIA system, no less – the outcome was published five docs later, such was the volume of business).
Australian Grand Prix Corporation CEO Andrew Westacott had to account for what he called “an uncontrolled ingress of people and patrons” at Turn 1 at the end of the race. While fans are traditionally allowed on track in Melbourne after the race, here a number of people had jumped the gun and made it as far as the asphalt as the leaders were crossing the finishing line. Spectators were also able to reach Nico Hülkenberg’s stranded Haas, which had a flashing red light indicating it was unsafe owing to potential electric discharge.
The AGPC “candidly admitted the failures” and undertook to “conduct a thorough investigation and take steps to remediate in time for the next event in Australia.” In a separate incident, a spectator suffered lacerations after being hit by debris from Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.