Australian GP Recap

The Australian GP was full of surprises, from Verstappen retiring to Sainz winning and to Russell’s last lap crash.

Ferrari had a very smooth operation in Australia. Sainz over took Verstappen on lap two to take the lead of the race. Leclerc finished second making it Ferrari’s first 1, 2 since Bahrain 2022. So far Ferrari is looking to be Red Bull’s closest competitor this year.

Red Bull had one of their worst races, if not their worst, in the last two years (excluding Singapore 2023). Verstappen, who had not been particularly pleased with the car all weekend, retired on lap 5 out of 58 due to a brake problem. He was trying to win his tenth race in a row, which he has done before once in 2023. Funny enough Verstappen hadn’t retired from a race since the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. Perez also had a bad race compared to the first two races of 2024, he finished fifth behind both of the Ferrari and Mclaren cars.

Mercedes had a terrible weekend, with a double DNF. Hamilton, who hasn’t been very comfortable in the car all season, had an engine issue and retired on lap 17. Russell at least looked like he was going to get a decent seventh but then on the last lap crashed. The stewards blamed this crash on Alonso, who was right in front of Russell, even though they didn’t touch. The reason being is Alonso was defending from Russell and tried a new technique in corner six on the last lap. He braked very early closing the gap to Russell and causing Russell to lose down force all of the sudden. Losing down force caused Russell’s car to crash.

Williams was down to one car in Australia due to the fact that Albon crashed in FP1 and they didn’t have a spare chassis. Williams made a hard call to put Albon in Sargeant’s car as they then only had one car. They thought it was the best possibility to score a point or two. Unfortunately for them they didn’t score any points and probably should have just left Sargeant in the car.

It was a crazy weekend with a smooth operator Sainz, a bad strategic call from Williams, and a terrible weekend for Red Bull and Mercedes. And I can’t wait to see what surprises the Japanese GP will bring next weekend.