Australian GP Report

Well, another good race in the books for the new regulations. With many different battles up and down the field, I was sincerely impressed with the way the cars could follow one another.

Heaven

Mercedes

With another 3-4 finish for the team, they kept their second place in the constructors' fight and put Russell in P2 in the drivers' championship fight. Hamilton got a bit unlucky with the safety car again, letting Russell get ahead and finish on the podium. Good result overall as they prepare car upgrades for the future races. It helps them with a good start in the championship fight. At the end of the season, people will look back on these results and know they were essential for the fight for the championship. It’s only a matter of time before they get back to the front again.

McLaren

A good double points finish for the first time of the season. The home boy, Daniel Ricciardo finished sixth behind Norris with less than a second between the two of them. The team seemed to be in a bit of no man’s land with a good gap behind and in front. A really good improvement after a dismal first round. The trajectory looks to be going up for the team, so hopefully that can continue as F1 goes to the European part of the calendar.

Leclerc

The Monegasque pulls a bigger advantage for his title fight with 71 points. He absolutely controlled this race, with the only time under threat being the second safety car restart. He had the pace over everyone else in the field. Hearing the Italian national anthem is a very nice hymn with Italian mechanics singing along. He is a very happy man, leading the world championship by 33 points with no clear challenger besides Verstappen who has failed to finish 2 of the first 3 rounds.

Albon

Williams score a point in 2022! A good statement from the team to show they do have pace in the car. This will help Albon's confidence and improve his form into the European stage of the season. He seemed to be able to keep pushing the tires further and further. He would have finished the race with no pit stops but was forced to switch tires on the last lap to follow race regulations requiring drivers to use two different sets of compounds. A good improvement for the Thai driver, with hopes of more results like this in the future.

Hell

Sainz

Easily, the worst race weekend with the Italian team. After being so unlucky in qualifying, it was a bit weird that Ferrari put on hard compound tires to start the race. There were problems heating the tires earlier in the weekend already. He had a terrible start after lacking tire temperatures and then made a mistake in the high speed chicane, which made him crash.

Verstappen

Yikes. It really sucks that he wasn’t able to finish the race after having pace for a P2 finish. Even finishing in 2nd would be fine, because it wouldn’t let Leclerc start to run away with the championship already. Now with another DNF, Max is going to be very frustrated. Sitting in sixth in the Drivers' Championship, He’ll need to be dominant at the next few races to get the gap to the leader down a bit.

Aston Martin

A really tough weekend for the team from Silverstone. Vettel ended his race prematurely crashing at turn four. Too many crashes in the weekend for both drivers ended up with terrible results for them. Stroll seemed to test the old 2016 Verstappen rule after getting a penalty for weaving on the straights. The team seems to be at it’s worst, with no pace in the car and too many mistakes.