What did VC Australia show? Red Bull in trouble, McLaren’s improvement, first point for Williams and more

The Australian Grand Prix produced some really interesting results and showed a lot. Williams scored its first point of the season, McLaren made a significant improvement, while Red Bull is in trouble. Even Mercedes has not found a recipe for recovery, so what has the third race of the season shown us?

Australian Grand Prix breaks attendance records

We wrote in more detail about the spectator appeal of the Melbourne race in this article. However, for Formula 1 and its fans, it’s nice to be reminded once again that 420,000 people passed through the gates of Albert Park across the entire race weekend!

The third race of the season thus broke the attendance record set last year by the US Grand Prix. 400,000 fans took to the stands in Austin.

The 2022 Australian Grand Prix also set a new record in the sense that it became the most attended sporting event ever held in Melbourne.

Race directorate hints at changes, FIA wants tougher regime

The Australian Grand Prix showed an attempt to make a definite ‘tangible’ change in the approach of the race directorate. In short, the FIA has decided to crack down in certain areas.

Even before the Australian Grand Prix, the governing body had already banned side-by-side driving if a safety car was on the track as a result of a collision, for example. Previous regulations thus allowed Max Verstappen to drive directly alongside his rival, but the new rules do not allow this and the drivers simply have to line up behind each other.

The FIA is also trying to introduce a clearer philosophy during the safety car’s on-track action. In the wake of the great Abu Dhabi Grand Prix controversy, the safety car procedure must indeed be done correctly.

That is, all drivers running a lap down (or one or more laps down to the race leader) are given the green light to pass the safety car, complete that one lap and then join the other drivers. Once all the monoblocs are lined up in the correct order and the track is safe, the safety car can go back to the pits, and the race is restarted under these circumstances.

Since 2005, the rule has been that drivers may not take any jewellery, or piercings or necklaces, into the car. However, this rule has been tightened by the FIA in Australia.

Williams scores his first point of the season

The work of Alexander Albon and his strategists was admirable. The Thai driver started the race on the hardest specification tyre marked in white, which allowed him to stop later in the race.

Albon had a great opportunity to stop on lap 39 when race HQ activated the virtual safety car condition.

However, he instead stayed on his tyres for fifty-seven laps, only reaching his mechanics on the final lap.

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. In any case, thanks to the lead he had built up, he only dropped three places from seventh place and retained a valuable point for Williams!

McLaren finally achieves a solid finish

Entering a new era has been very difficult for most teams in terms of setting up their monoblocs and sorting out the aerodynamics. It should be noted, even after three races, it is still very difficult to determine the real strength of the teams. Thanks to this aspect, the standings in both the Drivers’ Championship and the Constructors’ Cup could still be very mixed.

McLaren has suffered a lot in the opening two races of this season. It had very poor performance coupled with poor downforce, and McLaren also had major problems with brake cooling.

Fifth and sixth place in the Australian Grand Prix is therefore a significant step forward. It should be noted, both McLaren drivers put in a pretty decent performance throughout the race weekend.

It should be noted, the race in Australia never really set up as well as the teams’ form might look later in the season. Furthermore, it also looks like we will see a new era where each team will be suited to a different race circuit, given its configuration.

Mercedes still hasn’t found a recipe for improvement

If Max Verstappen doubts whether he will even have a chance to defend his triumph from last year this year, then Mercedes is still a significant way off when it comes to the battle for the overall championship.

The fact remains that, as a result of the still unresolved porpoising issues, Mercedes has not yet shown its real strength. Lewis Hamilton has already complained in Saudi Arabia about the poor set-up of his car and the significant understeer problems.

But Mercedes are not only failing to find a recipe for improvement, they are losing more and more ground to Red Bull and Ferrari.

In Bahrain, Mercedes was struggling with a deficit of 0.541 seconds. In Saudi Arabia, however, it was a loss of over one second, namely 1.025s. And in Australia, there was another deterioration, with Mercedes currently 1.229 seconds behind the top two teams.

What’s more, these numbers put their speed on paper even behind McLaren and Alpine. Yes, George Russell managed to grab third place in Australia despite overheating, plus Hamilton finished fourth, but McLaren’s strategy was badly damaged by the exit of the second safety car.

The Mercedes drivers were thus separated from the McLaren drivers, who had to fight their way back up the order as the race progressed. Russell then lost 26 seconds to race winner Charles Leclerc.

Red Bull has reliability issues

We wrote more about Red Bull’s problems, specifically Max Verstappen’s monopost, here. The fact remains that Verstappen is Leclerc’s closest challenger for the title. This is despite the fact that despite winning in Saudi Arabia, Verstappen has failed to see the finish line twice in the opening three races of this season.

Of course, it’s still very early to make any assessments, with Formula 1 currently only 10% of the way through the 2022 season.

In the above article, Verstappen talks about the results so far and seems to have any thoughts at all of winning the title at the moment. If Red Bull resolve the fuel system issues as soon as possible, the gap between Verstappen and Leclerc will be able to close and fans will be in for an interesting title fight.

After all, Red Bull together with Ferrari is conceptually the best car to be found in the grid.

A dominant Leclerc, a great Ferrari performance

Pole position, victory, fastest lap of the race, leader in all 58 laps of the Australian Grand Prix and best driver of the day.

Monaco’s Leclerc clearly dominated the Australian Grand Prix and proved that Ferrari is very much on a roll.

Apart from a small moment on the second restart, when Leclerc encountered understeer due to tyre cooling in the final corner, the Ferrari driver drove an excellent race, which he also controlled completely.

“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.

The world’s media were quick to label him as “Leclerc version 2.0.” – a claim the Ferrari driver almost immediately refuted, saying it was not a sudden change but a linear year-on-year improvement that has propelled Ferrari to the championship lead. It should be noted, Leclerc achieved his fourth F1 victory in style.

Sources