A Ferrari triumph is difficult to feel sorry for.
Perhaps the reason why the Scuderia is viewed as a charming underdog is because of the team’s recent history of nearly always chaotic race execution.
Perhaps it’s the vigor of Il Canto degli Italiani, which served as both the unofficial Formula 1 theme song and the nation’s anthem in the early 2000s.
Or perhaps it’s because a sizeable portion of the audience will have spent a lot of money on red merchandise in any nation that F1 travels to.
Whatever the cause, most people could agree that Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished first and second in the Australian Grand Prix, unless you were Max Verstappen, of course. To be honest, though, he has had a lot to be happy about lately.
It’s the story Formula 1 needed after two grands prix of Red Bull Racing domination and months of off-track turmoil.
And in front of a sold-out crowd of 132,106 people — adding up to a new four-day record of 452,055 — it was a timely reminder of the specta
SAINZ BEAT SURGERY TO DOMINATE ALBERT PARK
Carlos Sainz’s third triumph was his best yet.
He has previously won races by driving the fastest Ferrari and by combining exceptional race management with sheer speed.
However, this is the first—and, one can only hope, the only—time that he will have emerged victorious from a race with such serious injuries.
It was barely a fortnight ago that Sainz was on the operating table having his appendix removed.
He hadn’t trained in the two weeks before the Australian Grand Prix. He spent most of that time bedridden and recovering. He undertook only the most basic exercises to evaluate his ability to get in the car for practice after which he talked about the feeling of his organs moving around in his newly spacious abdominal cavity.
And after practice, the entire weekend was essentially a step into the unknown. His performance was simply epic. “How nervous I was? I was confident about the first half of the race that I was going to be okay because it’s more or less the laps that I did on Friday,” he explained. “The second half of the race was a bit of an unknown.”
His speed was his best friend on Sunday. “Once I got up in front and I had a gap, you can manage everything — you can manage yourself, you can manage the tyres, you have less pressure, you can choose your places where to push and not to push, and everything becomes a lot easier. “I’m not going to lie, the last five or 10 laps I was a bit stiff and tired, but nothing that was slowing me down too much.” There is a secondary context to all this — the one in which Sainz is out of contract but Ferrari’s better performer so far this season.
The expected fluidity of the 2025 driver market appeared to be generating the bizarre situation in which Sainz could end up as the second choice for a lot of teams but the first choice of none. Performances like these — taking into account the entire weekend — will surel“Then you get to Bahrain. You do a good podium. You say, ‘Okay, now the season is starting well and I can keep the momentum going’. “Suddenly, boom, they’re missing a race in Jeddah and the operation. Long days in bed, not knowing if I was going to be back in time. Obviously a lot of unknowns. Am I going to be back fit? Am I going to be back feeling still good with the car? “And then suddenly you come back and win. “Life is a rollercoaster sometimes, but it can be really nice and good to you sometimes. “I’m just letting it sink in and enjoying the moment.”y rectify that situation. “I think it’s not only the last two weeks,” he said of the meaningfulness of his Australian Grand Prix. “It’s the whole start to the year in general, how the year started with the news of the [contract] non-renewal. “Then you get yourself fit. You get yourself ready for the start of the season, pushing flat out.
“Then you get to Bahrain. You do a good podium. You say, ‘Okay, now the season is starting well and I can keep the momentum going’. “Suddenly, boom, they’re missing a race in Jeddah and the operation. Long days in bed, not knowing if I was going to be back in time. Obviously a lot of unknowns. Am I going to be back fit? Am I going to be back feeling still good with the car? “And then suddenly you come back and win. “Life is a rollercoaster sometimes, but it can be really nice and good to you sometimes. “I’m just letting it sink in and enjoying the moment.”
From the last 11 editions of the race there have been 10 different winners. Sebastian Vettel is theIt started with Verstappen breaking his floor on Friday, costing him track time on an unusual surface and circuit layout and with Pirelli’s super soft tyre selection. While Ferrari and McLaren arrived with cars already configured in their sweet spots, Red Bull Racing struggled to get into the zone from there, and despite Verstappen’s pole, the team was always half a step behind. “I think it’s a very front-limited circuit here,” team boss Christian Horner said, describing a characteristic track characteristic that has tended to neuter Red Bull Racing’s advantage in the last 12 months. only double victor, having defended his 2017 victory the following season. It’s therefore not so surprising that Melbourne should be the venue to trip up Verstappen again, having already had his turn on the top step. But it was more than just the failure. For the first time this season there was a genuine weak spot in Red Bull Racing’s game. Truthfully it was more operational than a matter of pure performance.
“I think the nature of the surface as well, I think the tyre graining here in particular was something that Ferrari looked in control of. Certainly from Friday their long runs were good. “I think it was undeniable that Ferrari had been very, very strong this weekend.” Those problems meant Sergio Pérez, who started sixth with a penalty for impeding in qualifying, was unusually hamstrung in his quest for the podium, never mind victory. His day was made considerably harder when a visor tear-off lodged itself underneath his floor around halfway through the race. Horner said it cost the Mexican considerable downforce, leaving him unable to prevent his tyres from expiring at the end of his second two stints.
None of this means that Red Bull Racing won’t return to its competitive best next time out in Japan. It does show, however, that there is at least one weakness, even if it’s small, that its rivals are capable of exploiting to close the gap.
ALONSO BRINGS ASTON INTO DISREPUTE Aston Martin has had a patchy start to the 2024 season, but Fernando Alonso brought it into considerable disrepute in the closing stages of the Australian Grand Prix. The wily Spanish veteran was defending against George Russell to hold sixth place. The pursuing car had fresher tyres and was bearing down. No-one gets past Alonso easily, but the Mercedes driver had the momentum. It all went wrong on lap 57 of 58 on the entry to turn 6.
“Alonso explained to the stewards that he intended to approach turn 6 differently, lifting earlier and with less speed into the corner to get a better exit,” the stewards document said. “Telemetry shows that Alonso lifted slightly more than 100 metres earlier than he ever had going into that corner during the race. “He also braked very slightly at a point that he did not usually brake (although the amount of brake was so slight that it was not the main reason for his car slowing) and he downshifted at a point he never usually downshifted. “He then upshifted again and accelerated to the corner before lifting again to make the corner.
“Alonso explained that while his plan was to slow earlier, he got it slightly wrong and had to take extra steps to get back up to speed. “Nonetheless, this manoeuvre created a considerable and unusual closing speed between the cars.” Russell implied after the race that it was tantamount to brake testing, a grave racing sin. The evaporation of the gap between the two cars robbed Russell of front downforce and killed his momentum. He slithered off the track, hit the barriers and was tipped into the half-roll that caused the race to end behind the virtual safety car.
Reviewing the data, the stewards ruled Alonso deserved to be penalised harshly. “Should Alonso have the right to try a different approach to the corner? Yes. “Should Alonso be responsible for dirty air, that ultimately caused the incident? No. “However, did he choose to do something, with whatever intent, that was extraordinary, i.e. lifting, braking, downshifting and all the other elements of the manoeuvre over 100 metres earlier than previously, and much greater than was needed to simply slow earlier for the corner? Yes. “In the opinion of the stewards, by doing these things he drove in a manner that was at very least ‘potentially dangerous’ given the very high-speed nature of that point of the track.”
It would be an exaggeration to call it dirty driving, but it was certainly inglorious for a driver ordinarily regarded as one of the sport’s most best racers. The idea that he might have attempted to pretend to have an engine problem afterwards — telemetry shows several unusual pulses of the throttle — potentially in an attempt to distract from his botched manoeuvre, makes it only more disappointing.
PIASTRI’S MAJOR OUTCOME
Oscar Piastri finished fourth, matching the best finish for an Australian at the Australian Grand Prix, but he was unable to become the nation’s first home podium finisher.
He looked to have a chance to make a rostrum appearance during a brief window in the race.
His huge attempt came during his early pit stop on lap 9.
Given the lack of clarity surrounding strategy, McLaren took a risk during an early stop to overtake Piastri and go ahead of Leclerc, who had been the slower Ferrari driver and appeared vulnerable in third.
However, Ferrari reacted fast, bringing Leclerc in on the same lap to offset the risk.
The suggestion to bench him in favor of Lando Norris sparked a lot of discussion, but in all honesty, there is no dispute. It was Norris who had been left with the quicker plan and a later first pit stop. Tenths of a second separated the five-lap differences in tire life.
Piastri holding up Norris would not have been in anyone’s best interests.
However, Piastri’s absence of a podium shouldn’t overshadow the team’s and his encouraging performance.
McLaren and Ferrari were strong competitors. Before the virtual safety car expanded the margins, there were only seconds separating the two teams.
It’s positive even when Red Bull Racing isn’t present because, prior to this last weekend, the team believed it to be clearly third in the order.
Not to mention Piastri’s race. He lost four seconds to Norris due to a lockup late in the middle stint, but other than that, he had a very solid race pace.
It’s obvious that Daniel Ricciardo’s homecoming weekend wasn’t as planned. The Australian crashed out of qualifying and said he didn’t understand why Yuki Tsunoda, his teammate in the same vehicle, was beating him so badly.
On race day, Tsunoda shined once more, earning six points for seventh place following penalties, while Ricciardo finished a pitiful 12th.
Though perhaps somewhat encouraged by the fact that his race pace, as it has done at every race this season, was equal to Tsunoda’s speed, the senior Australian on the grid finished the day at least philosophical about his issues.
It’s fantastic that there were times during the race when I did have speed and could demonstrate that, yes, I can still put in some strong runs. “Obviously, I would have preferred for the weekend to have gone better, but we must not lose sight of the goal.”
Crucially, he has the support of Christian Horner, the owner of Red Bull Racing, who at the very least still controls his two grid spots and still has influence over the Red Bull program despite the dysfunction that occurs behind the scenes.
Horner remarked, “Obviously he had a tough weekend.” “I haven’t given his race any thought. He appeared to be running the race at a speed that was fairly close to Yuki’s.
