Motorsport
VIDEO: Mass casualty at the end of Australian GP! FIA again sparks controversy, nearly half of drivers fail to finish the race
Formula 1 has completed its third race of the season (Australian Grand Prix). As well as great racing, it also brought great controversy, especially at the end. Two laps before the end, the FIA decided to start from a fixed position due to the withdrawal of Kevin Magnussen. And it turned out disastrously.
Formula 1 has completed its third race of the season (Australian Grand Prix). As well as great racing, it also brought great controversy, especially at the end. Two laps before the end, the FIA decided to start from a fixed position due to the withdrawal of Kevin Magnussen. And it turned out disastrously.
The third round of this year’s Formula One season, the Australian Grand Prix, offered a spectacle of racing duels, accidents, safety cars, red flags and controversy.
But it was the end of the race that probably got fans of the queen of motorsport out of their seats the most. On lap 56 of 58, Kevin Magnussen lost his right rear tyre in a crash into the wall. The Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) resorted to suspending the race through further red flags.
In this case, however, it was certainly not necessary, as the FIA is already being massively lambasted on social media for making this decision primarily for a “cheap” show.
And it came. After the restart from a fixed position, there was a mass crash, or rather several crashes in a very short period of time.
You can see the whole situation after the restart on lap 57 in the video below. After this absolute chaos, the sports commissioners understandably had to resort to more red flags and stopping the race.
The race restart simply turned into an absolute massacre. Both Alpinas, the Williams of Logan Sargeant and the Alpha Tauri of Nyck de Vries, ended up in the barrier after colliding with each other. Both Aston Martins dropped out of the points. In a word: Armageddon. The red flags came out again, waiting to see how the results would pan out. The drivers hadn’t completed a single lap.
The wait was never ending. And what came next caused a great deal of discussion. The FIA ordered a return to the track with a flying start, but without the cars that crashed. That left both Alpinas out of the top ten, a potentially crucial eleven-point loss for them.
To make matters worse, Carlos Sainz took a five-second penalty for a collision on the restart and was condemned to drop from fourth place. So only twelve drivers out of twenty actually finished the Australian Grand Prix.
So what is the final top 10 order at the end of the Australian GP? Max Verstappen was the winner, with Lewis Hamilton taking second place and Fernando Alonso celebrating his third podium in a row.
Lance Stroll finished fourth, Sergio Pérez fifth, Lando Norris sixth, Nico Hülkenberg seventh, Oscar Piastri eighth, Zhou Kuan-yu ninth and Yuki Cunoda tenth.
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