#f1 journal

The moment we’ve all been waiting for has been and gone; lights out in Australia. 

To say it was an eventful race is definitively an understatement, as the chaos the ensued before the lights even went out was insane as both Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenburg never even started. 

In the case of the twenty-four-year-old Piastri, there was an apparent torque spike as the Australian made his way to the grid. Clearly, if you’ve seen the damage of his car, it’s obvious that he would’ve never started the race. Breaking the hearts of many, people watched on as the young man from Melbourne raised his hands to his helmet, getting out of the car before taking the wander back to the pit lane. 

This is now the second time that incontrollable forces have wrecked Piastri’s race, with just last year, when he was set to take the podium, the young man spun onto the grass. Nearly never finishing, the crowd cheered Piastri on as he made his way from the back of the pack to P9. He even managed to get an amazing overtake on Lewis Hamilton, earning him the overtake of the month award for March. Sadly though, it does seem like the Australian Grand Prix to Piastri, is now once cursed like the Monaco Grand Prix was for Leclerc. 

For Hulkenburg, he just couldn’t start the car, the German side of the Audi garage unable to even get to the grid like Piastri. Clearly again a technical issue as the thirty-eight-year-old sat in his car as the rest of the German constructor tried and failed to start his car. This year’s finishing position for Hulkenburg is a large downfall, the German placing P6 last year. 

The rest of our DNF’s followed shortly, Hadjar stopping due to mechanical issues, similarly with Bottas a few laps later. Both Aston Martin drivers, as predicted by many, struggled throughout the race, eventually succumbing to the technical issues, ending up out of the race. The team eventually, separately sent their drivers out again, but failed as they wanted to protect the majority of the technical parts for the cars. 

Overall, the rest of the pack finished with a few minor scrapes at most, some probable penalties needing to be deliberated at the stewards. The front of the pack is in stark contrast to the rest of the field though, the top six coming away clear and clean, no harsh racing ever done. Yes, the Mercedes of George Russell and Ferrari of Charles Leclerc fought for a while, the two drivers overtaking each other consistently for about ten to fifteen out of the fifty-eight laps. 

These 2 drivers clearly were set for the podium from the beginning, Leclerc getting the jump on Russell only because of a dead battery for both Mercedes drivers when the lights went dark. The newly married Leclerc on the other hand, looked to have a fully charged one, belting ahead of the 2 Mercedes, the second of the Ferrari’s coming sharply in behind. 

It did look for quite a while like the prancing horses would take the win, but through a shot strategy from not taking a VSC pit, they lost time to the rocket ships of a Mercedes. Remember how I said that Hadjar had to stop because of smoke coming out of his car? Yeah, well that caused the safety car that caused a win to yet again slip away from Ferrari’s hands. 

While everybody else pit, the Ferrari’s stayed out, not even splitting their strategy. This turned out to be something very reminiscent of the fumble in which McLaren made back in Qatar last year. 

So, everybody pits, Ferrari stays out for longer, eventually pitting, and even more people DNF. This ended up taking the grand total to six non-finishers by the end of the race. Antonelli also manages to hold his own against Lewis Hamilton, someone over twice the young Italian’s age, working his way up to second. During all of this, Lando Norris, the now lone McLaren has gone back, and then fought his way up to fifth, and Max Verstappen from twentieth, has managed to claw his way back up into the points again. 

This is now the third time in the last 3 years in which Verstappen has made a gigantic climb up the field. Two of those incidents featuring at the Brazilian Grand Prix, where he, back-to-back, climbed up the field to the podium. 

This though, was also an amazing drive from Norris as he, with no help or support from a teammate, held off Verstappen. No carefully orchestrated strategy, just raw race craft. Norris isn’t my favourite driver, his Aussie teammate is, but it’s undeniable that the racing that we all witnessed – whether it be at one in the afternoon, or four in the morning – was immaculate. If he doesn’t take the championship again this year, Norris has certainly cemented himself in the history books by evidence of his race craft from today. 

Verstappen is a force to be reckoned with, and while the old dogs (Ferrari and Mercedes) were fighting again, Norris was giving a masterclass in defence as he held the number three driver back, all the way till the end. 

When the chequered flag was waved though, Norris’ defence of Verstappen went forgotten though, as the top 3 ended up as George Russell taking P1, the nineteen-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli taking P2, and Charles Leclerc finishing the podium in P3. Hamilton just slipped off the podium in P4, with Norris tying off the top 5. The top ten is then finished off with the following five; Verstappen, Bearman, Lindblad, Bortoleto and Gasly, all boys ascertaining points at Albert Park. 

We also have the topic of the constructor’s championship to cover, since the top ten of the driver’s championship is whatever the top 10 of the race was. 

Mercedes, taking the one-two in the race are sitting proudly in first place currently on forty-three points as Ferrari sits fifteen points behind the German outfit. McLaren then follows behind on the ten points scored by Norris and Red Bull then with the eight from Verstappen. The rest of the teams follow like this: 

Haas – 6 points 

Racing Bulls – 4 points 

Audi – 2 points 

Alpine – 1 point 

Williams – 0 points 

Cadillac – 0 points 

Aston Martin – 0 points 

So now, as we head into the week of the Chinese Grand Prix, there will be 2 questions plaguing people this year: Do we just ship the trophies to Brackley for Mercedes and George Russell to take the glory? Or will it finally be Ferrari’s year and Charles Leclerc will get his first? 

We certainly don’t know now, but we have 23 more races to find out.