Problems at Red Bull or Leclerc’s dominant performance: what results did the Australian Grand Prix bring?

The queen of motorsport has returned to the Australian circuit in Melbourne after a two-year hiatus. The Australian Grand Prix offered many battles, especially when it came to the battle for the podium! There were two safety cars, one virtual safety car, Max Verstappen didn’t make it to the finish, or who dominated the third race of the season?

For the start of the race, almost all the drivers chose the medium specification tyre marked yellow, with Magnussen, Vettel, Alonso, Stroll and Albon on the hardest compound in their starting slots. Gradually, however, the drivers switched to the hard tyres.

Carlos Sainz will be very unhappy after this race weekend. For the Spanish driver, the performance in Australia has already been very unlucky since qualifying on Saturday. He lost his fast time due to the red flags being displayed as a result of Alonso’s accident, and his next fast attempt was only good enough for ninth position.

Moreover, after the start of the Australian Grand Prix he dropped down to fourteenth place, but that was not all. Sainz couldn’t handle the chicane of Turns 9 and 10 on the second lap, whereupon he and his Ferrari ended up in a duck and couldn’t get out.

As a result of the shutdown of Sainz’s Ferrari, yellow flags were waved for the first time at the Melbourne circuit and a safety car had to be brought out on track. However, it returned to the pits at the end of lap six.

Lando Norris in the McLaren then lost two positions at the start. However, the British team from Woking has seen some improvement, especially in downforce and performance, and have had a decent race weekend.

During the Australian Grand Prix, turns 9 and 10 and 13 and 14 caused problems for several drivers.

Leclerc, Verstappen, Pérez, Hamilton, Russell, Norris, Ricciardo, Ocon, Gasly, Alonso – that was the order of the elite top ten after 10 laps.

Later in the Australian Grand Prix, the fans watched beautiful and fierce battles not only for the podium, but in the middle of the field. It was at the end of the tenth circuit that Sergio Pérez took third position ahead of Lewis Hamilton thanks to a daring manoeuvre.

Another attractive duel could be seen, for example, when Daniel Ricciardo came out of the pit lane, with three drivers vying for his position. However, the thirty-two-year-old Australian defended his position, albeit with considerable difficulty.

Charles Leclerc retained his first place after the pit stop (lap 22), and one lap later the spectators witnessed another duel between Pérez and Hamilton, with the Red Bull driver emerging victorious.

However, on lap twenty-four there was a driving error made by Sebastian Vettel at turn five. The German Aston Martin driver lost his front wing and his power unit literally went out. The safety car had to rejoin the track.

At the end of lap 26, the safety car pulled back into the pits and the race could be restarted. Monaco’s Leclerc almost lost his lead when he encountered understeer on the restart at the last corner. However, he handled the situation and managed to secure the lead from second-placed Verstappen.

The situation on lap 39 was absolutely infectious for Red Bull fans. Verstappen retires his Red Bull at Turn 1 due to technical problems with his engine and the Australian Grand Prix is over for him!

Thus, for the third time in the race, yellow flags were waved on the circuit and the virtual safety car was called. This state of affairs didn’t last long though, and at the end of the 40th circuit we were able to race again.

However, apart from a five-second penalty for zigzagging on the straight, which Lance Stroll received from race directors, nothing major happened in the last 15 laps or so. It must be added that Williams driver Alexander Albon did a fantastic job with the tyres, staying on one set of hard tyres throughout the race.

However, the rules are quite clear – a driver must wear at least two different tyre compounds in a race. This meant that Albon still had to make a pit stop on the last lap of the Australian Grand Prix. Thanks to the lead he had built up, he only dropped three places from seventh place and retained a valuable point for Williams!

So this is how the final top ten points standings look. One extra championship point for the fastest lap of the race also goes to Leclerc, who set a time of 1:20.260. The Ferrari driver was also voted best driver of the day.

“We did a great job all weekend, the car was very good, we had a very strong pace. It’s only the third race, so it’s hard to talk about the title. But today was the first time I felt like we were in full control of the race,” Leclerc explained in his post-race interview.

“We were a bit lucky today, but anyway, standing here on the podium is something special. We’ll keep fighting and I’m sure in a few races we’ll be back in contention for the win,” said George Russell immediately after the race, for whom this is the first podium finish since moving to Mercedes.

It should be noted that Leclerc and Ferrari have a solid lead at the front of the championship after the opening three races. Red Bull’s engineers and mechanics will need to resolve the technical issues currently plaguing their cars as soon as possible, at least at that race pace.

The next race is in a fortnight’s time when the queen of motorsport moves to Imola.

Source: F1 TV