Verstappen wins chaotic Australian GP

The Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix was a but of an odd affair with three red flags and a lot of on-track attrition. Despite losing the initial lead, Max Verstappen brought his Red Bull home in P1 followed by a spirited drive by Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso to round out the podium.

Win

A win for Red Bull and Max Verstappen for overcoming the slower starts they’ve had on standing restarts but they managed to hang on, use their pace and secure the win. They also managed to recover with Sergio Perez who started in the pit lane and came home in P5. The good news for the team is they didn’t hear much about a drive shaft making noises. The bad news is, there is something going on with Perez’s car.

A win for Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for a terrific P2. The team said they brought no upgrades so this leaves one wondering a few things such as, has all the hard work on set up and configuration paid off and was the Australian track and temps a factor in complimenting their car and its ability to generate heat in their tires? Regardless, Lewis found the pace and capitalized on it by staying ahead of a feisty Alonso.

A win for Aston Martin with Fernando Alonso scoring his third podium in three races followed by Lance Stroll in 4th. A great result for the team and there was a brief moment that they seemed to be able to close the gap to Lewis but that never materialized. Still, a great result for the team.

A win for both McLaren drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, for bringing the cars home in 6th and 8th respectively. McLaren benefitted by the count-back on the final starting order with both Alpine’s out but to be fair, both drivers were doing a great job to hover in the points most of the day. Points this team desperately needs.

A win for Haas F1 and Nico Hulkenberg in P7 but the team weren’t happy because they felt the final restart should have been in the order they ran which would have had Nico on the podium. An Appeal was rejected by the FIA but you still have to consider P7 a decent result.

A win for Yuki Tsunoda who managed to take the final point instead of finishing in 11th which he normally does.

Fail

A fail for Ferrari who saw Charles Leclerc clash with Lance Stroll and beach the car on first lap. Then, Carlo Sainz was having a cracker of a race but punted Fernando Alonso on the final restart garnering a 5s penalty and finished in 12th out of the points which made it a pointless weekend for Ferrari.

A fail for Alpine who had a great run going in the hands of Pierre Gasly but at the final restart, Gasly didn’t see Esteban Ocon and they both clashed taking them out of the race. The sliver of good news is that they had pace to run at the sharper end of the grid but they missed a massive points haul in Australia.

A fail for Williams with two driver errors from Alex Albon and Logan Sergeant taking both out of the race. Alex spun on lap 7 and Logan hit the back of Alpha Tauri’s Nyck de Vries. A shame for Alex because he was sniffing for a point all weekend long.

A fail for Haas F1’s Kevin Magnussen who hit the wall late in the race bringing out the red flag.

WTH

So the discussion is centered around the three red flags during the race and the final red flag for a green flag finish. The reality is, the red flag is for Saftey and the race stewards/control felt that both Albon’s crash and Magnussen’s crash warranted the red flag due to debris oh the track.

There are those who felt that the first or second red flag wasn’t needed as the track could have been cleared while the Safety Car was out and the field was controlled. The final red flag was to attempt a racing finish but the subsequent restart was mere formality to accomplish the total laps ran and contractually that’s probably a big deal concerning their contract with the host.

Many bemoan the lack of clear rules and I would direct you to the Max Mosely autobiography for more insight into why the regulations are broader on scope. You cannot anticipate every eventuality and the pressure the series is under to not finish under a red flag (as 2021 should prove) is what the series is shooting for. If people don’t like it, then they should move away from that effort but if they do so, people will hate that decision too so there really is no winning for F1 unless they do a complete race regulatory review and rule changes.

The fact is, this notion of finishing under green in late-race conditions is new to F1 and the drivers aren’t used to it like NASCAR and their green, white, checker concept. Drivers in F1 turned the final restart into a crash fest and it’s something NASCAR and Indycar drivers still struggle with but have gotten much better at as time has gone on. They know that bringing the car home and securing points is more important than trying to win or bin it.

I would argue the Albon incident could have been cleaned up under yellow, I do think there was a lot of debris on track after Magnussen incident and after the restart, the race probably could have been counted back and called at that point.

Also keep in mind that some of this may be impacted by the amount of resources they have at every part of a track. They deemed the red flag after Albon’s incident needed because it would have taken too many laps with too many people on track to be safe. There is also the issue of debris cutting tires as well.

I know what F1 was trying to do and I’m not upset about it but perhaps some tweaking of late-race red flag regulations might alleviate some of the confusion from teams.

Pirelli Tire Story:

• Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the Australian Grand Prix for the first time in his career. In an action-packed race, the reigning world champion led two other world champions past the chequered flag: Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso. All the podium finishers ended the race on the P Zero Red soft, following a tyre change one lap from the finish.
• The Australian Grand Prix was interrupted by three safety car periods and three red flag periods, including a red flag just a lap from the finish, leading to two standing starts and a final rolling start. The virtual safety car also made an appearance, due to a car stopped on the exit of the pitlane.
• The race strategies were largely influenced by the frequent safety car periods and other race interruptions. The top three started on the P Zero Yellow medium and then went onto the P Zero White hard at the first neutralisation. The last three laps were instead run on two different sets of soft tyres.
• A total of 10 drivers completed the longest stint on the hard tyre, covering 47 laps on this compound, including all three podium finishers. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon kept the same set of hard tyres that he had fitted on lap one without changing them during the first red flag period, completing 54 laps on the same tyres. Alfa Romeo drivers Valtteri Bottas and Guanyou Zhou, also used the same set of hard tyres for more than 50 laps.
• AlphaTauri’s Nyck De Vries was instead the driver to complete the most consecutive laps on the two other available compounds: 37 on the medium and nine on the soft.
• Red Bull’s Sergio Perez set the fastest lap of the race, using the hard tyre (1m20.235s), and was also one of the drivers to complete the longest stint on this compound. Alonso and De Vries were instead fastest on the medium and soft tyres, setting times of 1m22.603s and 1m21.183s on these compounds respectively.

Australian Grand Prix Results: