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This Grand Prix – Australian

Hello welcome to This Australian Grand Prix the opening race of 2025, a race where Lando Norris took back-to-back wins and the lead of the championship for the first time in his career.  If you’re new this is like This Week, but we also wrap up the main talking points, analyse the weekend events and bring you more reaction.

General News

F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has signed a new five-year contract with Liberty Media until the end of the 2029 season. The former Ferrari team principal and Lamborghini chief executive has held the role since 2021.

The deal was announced just days before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. F1 statement said, “Stefano has been instrumental in driving the business to new levels of success and becoming the global sport it is today.”

Domenicali said: “I am honoured to continue to lead this incredible sport, which I love and has been part of my life since my childhood. Together, with all the relevant F1 stakeholders, we will continue to serve the best interest of our fans, as they are the heartbeat of everything we do.

On Sunday morning Liberty Media announced that all teams plus Cadillac have signed the new Concorde Agreement which will take effect on 1^st January 2026. The agreement sets out the agreement of commercial terms between F1, the FIA and the teams. F1 said in a statement that it has “never been in a stronger position and all stakeholders have seen positive benefits and significant growth”.

It added that it wanted to thank “all the teams for their engagement during the process to reach the best outcome for the sport”. Full details will be announced over the coming weeks including length, though formally in recent times there has been in the past been very public rows between the parties, including an attempted breakaway by the teams in 2009

Weekend Recap

FP1 saw Lando Norris top the times with a 17.252 which put him a tenth and a half ahead of the Williams of Carlos Sainz. Norris’s main rival going into this season Ferrari was third with Charles Leclerc two-tenths off the McLaren’s time. The Englishman set his fastest time in the closing moments of the session to push his former teammate off the top spot. Oscar Piastri put his McLaren fourth four-tenths off his teammate as he went a quarter of a tenth faster than Max Verstappen.

FP2 was topped by Leclerc with a 16.439 going a tenth and a quarter faster than Oscar Piastri. The Monacan set his fastest time midway through the session on his first run on the soft tyres to push both McLarens down the order. Piastri was just under two hundredths faster than his McLaren teammate Lando Norris.

FP3s saw Piastri top the times with a 15.921 going four hundredth faster than George Russell and Max Verstappen. One man looking to make up for lost time in final practice was Ollie Bearman, who crashed heavily in FP1 and missed FP2 as a result of the damage caused, but he had a session-ending moment just minutes into the action.

Qualifying saw Norris beat Piastri to the pole with a 15.096 after going almost a tenth faster despite both McLarens having a time deleted in Q3 for track limits. Max Verstappen was third but nearly three-tenths of a second as McLaren locked out the front row. Ferrari appeared to be missing from the fight for the pole, despite in practice and testing looking to be McLaren’s closest challenger. Leclerc could only go seventh nearly seven-tenths off Norris and ahead of Hamilton by nearly a tenth.

Norris secured back-to-back wins in a chaotic season opener, holding off Verstappen to take a nine-tenths victory. The race was defined by crashes and three safety cars, with Norris leading most of the race despite challenging conditions. Piastri spun off and recovered to ninth, while Russell finished third. The treacherous conditions saw several rookies crash out, and Ferrari faced strategic questions after Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton dropped positions. Norris’s victory ended Verstappen’s long championship lead which had lasted for over a thousandth days

McLaren

Lando Norris acknowledges that McLaren starts the season as favourite but says the view among his rivals is “short-sighted”. Since the test a fortnight ago where McLaren based on the more detailed analysis appeared to be the fastest team with around half a second ahead of Ferrari.

The Englishman believes the status as favourites was the consequence of one race-distance run he did on the second day of testing, which suggested they would have won the Bahrain Grand Prix by half a second had it been held a fortnight ago.

Ahead of the weekend asked if he thought that McLaren were favourites going into the Australian Grand Prix this weekend, Norris said: “I feel like we are now. I know there’s a lot of expectation and it’s what everyone says. I’m quite surprised so many people are so short-sighted, especially people you wouldn’t expect to be, making so many conclusions before you even start the season.”

Oscar Piastri has signed a two-year contract extension with McLaren which will see him stay at the team until 2028. In 2023, following his debut season he signed a three-year deal which was due to end in 2026.

The news came on Wednesday morning in Melbourne and will see him partner Lando Norris until 2027 when the Englishman’s contract ends. Piastri said, “It’s a great feeling knowing that I’m part of McLaren’s long-term vision. The team had the belief in me when we signed in 2022, and the journey we’ve gone on over the past two seasons to help return McLaren to the very top of the sport has been incredible.”

Following practice, Norris said there were “too many inconsistencies” and “too many problems” on low-fuel runs in Australia, despite a strong set of times on the first day of practice. Norris was third in FP2 almost a tenth and a half behind Leclerc and two hundredths behind teammate Piastri, after being fastest in FP1.

While he acknowledged it has been a good start he still says there were still some areas for improvement including on low fuel. I would find it hard to believe low fuel is an issue as many believe that throughout the four days of track running the feeling is we haven’t seen everything from McLaren and while there always is more to find I don’t think they need a lot sat here on Friday evening.

Piastri was more positive after getting out of the car he described the day as “pretty encouraging” day after jumping out of the car.

He said, “I think the pace was pretty solid, still a few things to try and iron out to make the car feel a bit nicer. I think the underlying pace seems strong. I’m pretty happy with the day’s work. I think it’s going to be pretty different for the next two days, so how much today means, we don’t know, but it feels pretty good.”

When pushed on how confident he is of standing on the podium in front of his local fans, Piastri conceded: “It’s hard to say. The weather’s going to be pretty different on Sunday and that’s going to throw some spanners in the works, but I think the underlying pace of the car seems strong.

McLaren started the season with a front-row lock-out following a dramatic and action-packed qualifying with Norris beating Piastri to pole by almost a tenth, this had been expected and the margin between Norris and Verstappen was just under half a second off the Englishman.

Speaking in the post-qualifying interview, Piastri was happy with the start of his season, although it’s clear he wanted more after a provisional pole earlier in the session. He said, “Yeah, pretty happy. It’s obviously great to start the year on the front row – only one position further back that I would have liked – but no, I think it’s a great start to the year and great to have the team on the front row.”

“Now we’ll reset and see what tomorrow has in store but I’m pretty happy with how qualifying went, just not quite enough in Q3, but it’s the start of a long season, so I’m pretty happy with a solid start.” We know Piastri, Norris and Verstappen all made mistakes at different points in Q3 and the Melbournian’s mistake was in the final sector on the last lap after a mistake earlier in the final part of qualifying.

I think little mistakes at the start of the year are down to drivers being a bit rusty after the winter break, but also Melbourne being a street circuit and we know the track is a living thing which changes throughout the weekend more than a permanent circuit. But they will all be kicking themselves for those mistakes as we expected McLaren are the favourites at this stage of the season.

Norris added, “It’s the perfect way to start the year, you know, so… first of all, a big congrats to the team, everyone at McLaren. An amazing job to continue from where we were at the end of last season, to start with a 1-2, but it’s just quali, right? Let’s wait and see tomorrow. It’s going to be a tricky race, but today was a perfect race start.”

McLaren isn’t just fighting for another constructors’ championship, but also for a drivers’ championship with the team nurturing Norris for this since he joined the grid in 2019.

Norris described his first win of the season as an “amazing way to start the year”, with the Briton suggesting that he and the McLaren team have learned from mistakes previously made in similar races last year. The Englishman led from the start before fending off Verstappen in the closing stages, after the Red Bull passed Piastri after he spun when dipping a tyre onto the grass.

He told reporters, “It was amazing, a tough race, especially with Max behind me. I was pushing, especially the last two laps were a little bit stressful, but an amazing way to start the year. A tough one because we went off, made some big mistakes and went through the gravel and did a lot of damage. It was just tricky conditions, but these are the ones that are enjoyable and fun and unpredictable, but this time we got it right and we ended up on top, so I’m very happy.”

Norris was right I agree the team has learned from the mistakes last year in Montreal and Silverstone, when they got their strategy in the mixed conditions badly wrong costing them points. Its only race one but they put themselves in a good position for the rest of the season.

Team principal Andrea Stella has spoken out about Piastri’s impressive but unlucky drive, the Australian driver was in contention to win the season opener as he slowly reeled in team-mate Lando Norris for much of the race. But as he got closer in the closing stages he went off onto the grass that dropped him down to ninth.

Speaking about Piastri’s race, he said, “Oscar just paid a bigger price than Lando with going off-track and then not being able to come out of the grass. But I think Oscar today was deserving to be in contention for the victory until the last moment, and he drove exceptionally well. And when I use the verb ‘driving,’ that’s not only driving the car around the track, but it’s also the kind of assessment of the conditions and the decisions that we should have taken.”

Speaking after recovering to finish ninth, Piastri conceded: “I’ve felt better. I’m just disappointed, obviously. I honestly don’t know what to say, really. Obviously, a mistake from myself but I think for it to have the consequences that it did were a little bit unfortunate. I’ve only got myself to blame. I tried to push too much in those conditions. But the other 56 and three-quarter laps were very strong. I’m obviously very disappointed, but I think there are a lot of positives to take.”

Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton says he does not feel any pressure to prove himself as he starts his Ferrari career. Speaking to the media on Thursday, the seven-time champion said “I am under no assumptions it will be easy. I don’t feel the pressure. The outside pressure is non-existent for me. The pressure is from within and what I want to achieve.”

“I am not here to prove anything to anybody. I have done it time and time again. I know what it takes to do a good job and that’s what I want to deliver, for myself, and my family, for this team that I really believe deserve success.” Hamilton continued to appear relaxed and positive appearance which has been a key characteristic since he joined Ferrari.

But the seven-time champion predicted that the season would be close and Hamilton praised his work ethic which he says was similar to his. Leclerc ‘Mr Ferrari’, Hamilton added “has been really cool to work alongside him.”

Following practice, Hamilton said he was “slowly building” in his new Ferrari and getting faster “bit by bit” ahead of Qualifying, after finishing fifth-fastest in Friday practice.

In FP2 he was just four tenths off Leclerc’s fastest time, which suggests Ferrari might be closer to McLaren than expected after testing two weeks ago. He told reporters, “It’s (been) a super exciting build-up to this week and it felt amazing to get out there and be in a Ferrari here.”

“Honestly, the car felt so much different to what I’ve ever experienced coming to this track, so it took a little bit of bedding in through P1. P2 was definitely a littler better but just building. We’re slowly building and getting a little bit faster bit by bit.” Hamilton was seeking a record-extending ninth pole at Albert Park, but going into qualifying conceded it was too soon to challenge for pole as he still adjusting to the Ferrari

While Hamilton may still be bedding into his new team and machinery just seven weeks after starting work at the Prancing Horse, the new 2025 car he is driving certainly appears to have front-running promise after Leclerc hit the ground running to kick off his seventh season at the squad. Leclerc said after topping FP2 by a tenth and a quarter said “Obviously we did good preparation work. There are things we need to improve as always, and I’m not very happy with the balance yet, but we’re in a much better place compared to Bahrain testing and there’s a lot of performance to find.”

“But that’s the same for everyone in the paddock. Those cars are pretty new for everyone so you’ve got to push it to understand where exactly is the limit. But it has been a solid first day and we need to wait and see how it goes [on Saturday] when we push a bit more.”

Hamilton’s debut for Ferrari was unbelievably mired by miscommunication and the seven-time champion admitted he had a lack of confidence. The seven-time world champion went from at one stage leading the race before ferrar made the wrong call with the late band of rain leaving him on track as he struggled with communication with race engineer Riccardo Adami.

He told Sky Sports “I didn’t have any confidence today in it unfortunately, so I’m going to make some changes next week to the car. Today was the braking and the rear stability, particularly on power – there was lots of snaps, I was nearly in the wall a lot!”

“I think Riccardo did a really good job – I think we’re learning about each other bit by bit. After this we’ll download, we’ll go through all the comments, things I said, and vice versa. I’m generally not one that likes a lot of information in the race – unless I need it I’ll ask for it, but he did his best today and we’ll move forward.”

I think these issues were unavoidable as they as Hamilton himself said going into the weekend still learning to work together, this would have also been the first time under the pressure of a race they will learn from it and Hamilton I think was happy though he will need to learn. Hamilton I think could have got more out of this race without the communication issues.

Red Bull

Liam Lawson believes it would be tough to expect him to beat Max Verstappen immediately on joining Red Bull, and instead will use a “big opportunity” to exploit his team-mate’s knowledge and experience to boost his skills

Looking ahead to his first race for Red Bull, Lawson said that his plan for the year was to tap into Verstappen’s feedback and data and attempt to learn from that to start matching the four-time champion. He told reporters, “It’s just a big opportunity to have somebody like Max [to learn from]; when he came into the sport [he] was already very, very fast; in 10 years he’s won four world championships, and he’s very experienced.”

“I think that’s more of an opportunity than anything for me coming in here in effectively my first time starting a season, doing a full season – to have him as a team-mate to learn off is massively valuable. I think I just need to look at it that way.”

Verstappen was surprised to qualify third after the team turned around its performance allowing him to go just under half a second off Norris. In practice he had been fifth in FP1 and seventh in FP2 where he was seventh, while Red Bull did make the jump overnight I feel it was just too big of a jump needed for pole as Verstappen was almost four-tenths off.

Reflecting on qualifying, Verstappen explained that the car was still lacking a little bit of outright pace, but that the balance changes had made it much easier to get the tyres into the right window for a qualifying lap. Verstappen suggested, “We had a bit of a tough start. This has never really been a good track to us I think as well, so it took a bit of time to understand how we can improve the situation, and we did that today.”

“I’m quite surprised to be sitting here [in the press conference] after yesterday! I felt confident. I felt one with the car. Of course, it was lacking a bit of pace, but overall, happy with the laps in qualifying. We were just trying to fine-tune the balance, and the car just came alive a little bit more in general, it was quite OK to drive because it was too slow. Today it was a little bit faster, but clearly still not fast enough. But still, to be ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes I think is good for us.”

Verstappen appeared to back up what I noticed in Bahrain a fortnight ago that the Red Bull appears sensitive on its tyres in the high-speed corners. Thus making it difficult to maintain the pace through the lap – a phenomenon shown in the drop-off in the final sector, as Verstappen often showed up well in sectors one and two.

It was a difficult qualifying for Lawson ahead of his defacto home race with the Kiwi knocked out in Q1 starting from eighteenth. He was forced to abort his final run after going wide at Ascari and said that his preparations on Saturday were less than idea after engine issues forced him out of FP3 but feels the mistake rather than missing the session cost him.

He told Sky Sports “We expected the start of qualifying to be tough. To be honest, the first laps were expected to be off and then we were just planning on building through the session. But obviously going off the second lap put everything out of the order a bit. The last lap was good until the last sector, where I had a big drop. Obviously missing P3 obviously doesn’t help any of us, but I shouldn’t be going off in quali.”

Lawson missed out on a Q2 by just under six-tenths of a second after a late off, he also had a major moment at the tricky Clark (Turns Nine-Ten) section on his final flying lap. He added “Before Turn Nine, we were about half a second up,” he revealed. “Then obviously we would have just kept improving. I really had a snap through Nine and Ten, I think the tyres were really starting to drop there. This is something that we have just been battling this weekend and obviously, something we missed practicing in FP3.”

Following the race, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko agreed that the team were unable to match the pace of the McLaren. Horner described his rivals as having a well-balanced car which made them look strong. He told reporters, “”Max made a good start, got a little boxed in but then a great move around the outside of Oscar and was able to challenge a little, initially Lando, but I think we were just a little heavier on the tar, particularly in the last sector.’

“Then that gap started to open. Oscar was able to get back past Max. And the inters, it was interesting because right at the end of the inters it started to come back again and we started to be very competitive again. At the pit stop, we went on to the mediums and I was somewhat surprised to see everybody going onto hards on a damp track, and we felt that would give a better warm-up and so on. And then the rain came again, and it was only really in the last sector.”

“The first two sectors were quick, and it very nearly paid off to get over and get the lead, but in the end, when it all played out, he managed to jump back up into second for what became an eight-lap shootout to the finish and he very nearly nicked it at the end there.” Red Bull I think had the best result possible and performed better than expected which may have been helped by Ferrari having a tough race, but Verstappen did look ok in the changeable conditions which I think brought him into play.

Mercedes

George Russell says that he doesn’t expect to be faster than his rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli. The Englishman going into his sixth season says while he doesn’t feel faster than he did in 2018, that his experience has given him the edge.

Speaking to the media ahead of the season opener, Russell was asked by Motorsport.com if he feels he needs to be well ahead of his Italian team-mate now that he is alongside a rookie instead of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. He explained: “No, not at all. Kimi’s an exceptional driver, and I’ve said this before, I don’t feel any faster today than when I was eighteen years old, but I’m far more experienced.”

Following practice Russell said he was more confident on the harder tyres but was struggling on his soft qualifying run. In FP2 the Englishman finished tenth almost eight and a half tenth off Leclerc but did show solid and consistent race pace on the C3/C4 tyres where he was more comfortable. Russell reckoned that his team could find a smoking gun during the post-session debrief, but noted that the squad was struggling to find the one-lap performance step between soft and medium tyres.

Russell said, “It was a really up and down day because every time we had the medium or the hard tyre on, we were right in the top two of the time sheets and every lap felt good, felt confident. Then we put the soft on, we didn’t go much quicker. Clearly, there is a bit of pace in the car and it’s just getting the most out of the tyre, so we need to understand why that is. Let’s see what we can achieve overnight.”

Meanwhile, teammate Kimi Antonelli was only sixteenth after going wide during his qualifying simulations, which he put down to his own inexperience with tyre management and getting the right temperatures on the softs (C4) tyre.

He added, “It was I think quite a positive day; there’s some work to do on single lap, just getting the tyres in the right window, but overall I felt pretty good. I did a little mistake at the end, but overall I think I’m getting more and more confidence up, and I think the long run was quite positive today.”

Following qualifying Russell said the team could turn off development and focus on 2026 following  McLaren’s dominance in qualifying where Norris was almost four-tenths faster than Verstappen. The Englishman believes McLaren has a gap that cannot be overcome, so it can already safely switch all its efforts to next year’s project and leave its current MCL39 as it is.

He said “(Sunday) is anybody’s game, as it always is in the rain, but if it was dry, I expect that gap from McLaren to probably increase in race pace. It’s all tyres. If you’re strong in sector three, that only points to tyres, so they’re doing something pretty special, that’s for sure. We always hoped that it could be closer, but that was the reality and fair play to them.”

Though going into the race he believed the battle for third was open between himself, Verstappen and both Ferrari’s of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso said he was happy to start twelfth following damage to his car during qualifying which brought his session to an early finish to the session. Speaking to the media Aston Martin said, “Fernando sustained some floor damage in his first Q2 run which cost some performance for his final run in the session.”

Despite the early exit, the Spaniard remains optimistic about where the AMR25 sits in comparison to its rivals. He told reporters “I’m happy with today’s feeling, first qualifying of the year, the first moment that you are in the same moment with the same conditions to everyone, so there is always a little bit of curiosity on where are you, so we were in the top ten. We were quite fast, then yeah, I made a mistake in Q2, run one. I went a little bit wide in Turn 10, I think I had damaged the floor a little bit.”

When asked if he was happy with the performance of his machinery today, the Spanish driver added, “I think this morning it was a little bit weird. We experimented a little bit with the set-up. It didn’t work. I was P18 or something like that. We revert to yesterday’s set-up, and in qualifying, the car was fast, so I don’t know, we are close to the top 10, close to Q3, so I think it’s a good start. We need to build from here.”

Haas

Ollie Bearman apologised to his team after his season began with a crash in FP1, which caused him to miss FP2. The Englishman took too much kerb and ran wide at Clark (Turns Nine and Ten), running onto the gravel and ultimately slamming into the wall, bringing out a red flag. That left him on the slide lines for the rest of  the day, apart from an instal lap at the end of FP2

He told reporters, “The feeling was good. I think just wanting a bit too much, too soon – which is kind of my approach, which isn’t really the right one for F1. In F2 you go straight to quali after the first practice session and in F1 you have two more, so there’s no need to be straight on the limit. Maybe I overdid it slightly, but it’s totally on me.”

“Just a bit too much steering lock over the compression at the apex of 10, which sent me wide, and it’s quite bumpy out there. I just lost it. Once you’re in the gravel it’s so bumpy and there is asphalt, grass, bumps and I was already out of it, but once you’re there, honestly, there is no more control, unfortunately.”

This is not the return he would have wanted after crashing out of the Grand Prix in Sao Paulo and in his next session crashing out. Meanwhile Esteban Ocon completed thirty laps and was over a second and a half off the pace set by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Asked by Motorsport.com if there was more in the car, Ocon said: “It’s still very early days. Of course, it wasn’t the smoothest day for us. We’ve had quite a few difficulties in some areas, and we need to smooth that all together. There’s a lot for us to test. We completely changed the car from P1 to P2.”

Things didn’t get better in FP3 for Bearman after he beached the car in the gravel and then didn’t qualify after his Haas stopped on track with a mechanical issue in Q1. The FP3 incident was caused by him on his first flying lap putting the tyre on the grass sending him into a spin. He said, “Yeah, I mean, pretty unforgiving circuit and you know, two seemingly small errors giving big consequences and missing out on all of my running clumsiness from my side to make these errors, honestly, and that’s not good enough. And then of course the gearbox issue and the qualifying pretty much sums up what we’ve had so far.”

However Bearman believes the American team is lacking “pure performance”.

Racing Bulls

Racing Bulls technical director Jody Egginton will leave the team and move to Red Bull Advanced Technologies, the team has announced. Egginton will stay within the Red Bull family but his move to Red Bull’s technology arm means his time in F1 will come to an end after a career spanning almost thirty years.

The Englishman has served as the Racing Bulls technical director since its Toro Rosso days in 2019. Egginton will be replaced by the team’s chief technical officer Tim Goss who will take on additional duties, as will his deputies Guillaume Cattelani and Andrea Landi, who head up car performance and design respectively.

Egginton said, “Being part of this team for over ten years has been a fantastic experience for me, providing some very memorable moments. But after almost twenty years of focusing solely on Formula 1, I feel it’s time for a change.”

“I will have a great remit as Engineering Director of Red Bull Advanced Technologies and the company currently has an exciting list of projects, so I can’t wait to get started on this new challenge.”

Racing Bulls boss Laurent Mekies paid tribute to Egginton, who first joined Toro Rosso in 2014 after stints at Tyrell, various guises of Force India and Lotus.

he said, “As our long-serving technical director, he has been instrumental in driving innovation and fostering team growth. I want to thank Jody for his expertise and the important contribution he has made to the team and the company’s upward trajectory.”

Williams

Carlos Sainz was “very proud” of Williams after he and teammate Alex Albon made it through to Q3 as they started tenth and sixth respectively. After being replaced by Hamilton at Ferrari, Sainz made an equally surprising move to Williams and believes the strong start to the season justifies his move to Williams.

The Spaniard told Sky Sports post-qualifying, “Yeah, very happy, very proud of the whole team, the way we’ve managed to progress through the winter and put together a car that is allowing us to be in Q3 for the first time in many years with both cars. I think it’s great.”

“And it can only get better because I have so much more potential, you know, to unlock as soon as I understand how to extract lap time in Q3. I was pretty strong in testing on the weekend, but clearly, when it came to Q3, I didn’t know where to find the lap time, and I did a few mistakes, and now I need to build that for me.”

We saw in testing that Williams was the most improved team and certainly have the performance to be in the midfield, Albon was nearly two-hundredths faster than the Ferrari of Leclerc and Sainz was just under a tenth behind Hamilton. This is good progress and maybe they as we said were hindered throughout 2024 by all the accident damage, there has been last season they were perhaps hampered by not being able to bring upgrades.

But  Sainz admitted that he expects a steep learning curve going into the Grand Prix.

Well Sainz’s race only lasted a lap after a strange incident behind the safety car caused him to crash at the final corner after experiencing what he called a “massive torque surge” while talking to his race engineer over team radio.  Sainz has revealed the incident was caused by the way the Williams gearbox operates under safety car conditions.

He told reporters, “We’ve looked at the data and could quickly spot what happened, so this leaves me calmer about the situation. Without going into details, it’s related to the upshifts when in Safety Car Mode. I’m obviously frustrated about it and feel sorry for everyone in the team. I spent the rest of the race trying to help on the radio and I’m happy I could at least participate in that way. Thankfully China is already next weekend and I can’t wait to jump back in the car”.

It’s not driver error which was behind it, but it cost the team an even bigger haul of points after Albon finished fifth but was prompted to fourth after Antonelli was handed a five-second penalty for an unsafe release in the pits.

Albon meanwhile praised the teams strategy and the switch to inters which allowed him to hold off the Ferrari’s early on and finish fifth. The early switch gave him the chance to leapfrog both Leclerc and Hamilton as Ferrari dithered on strategy leaving both cars out longer on slicks when he switched to inters. That allowed them to score their best result in a ‘full distance’ race, bearing losing the first lap with the aborted start, since Baku 2017.

Albon said “I think as a team we really executed everything we did today,” Albon enthused after scoring Williams’ best result in a full-distance grand prix since Lance Stroll took a podium in Baku in 2017. First race it’s not easy to be dialled in, in terms of strategy and approach to the weekend and we executed everything so well today to get that P4 [before a penalty given to Antonelli was rescinded].”

“It’s just a fantastic start and it just shows we made a huge step from last year. These results, P4s, they’re not going to come around very many times this year. We’ve talked a lot about capitalising early internally, in trying to make sure that we took advantage of rookie drivers and things like that to get those points quickly.”

Albon admitted that he was unsure Williams would be able to compete in the conditions, citing the wind and the proneness of the intermediate tyres to experience thermal degradation. He suggested that the car was set back in performance by the gusty weather, but that it nonetheless showed great improvement from 2024.

Facts and stats (F1.com)

• Lando Norris took the lead of the Drivers’ Championship for the first time. Norris is the first McLaren driver to lead the Championship since Lewis Hamilton after the 2012 Canadian Grand Prix. Ending Max Verstappen’s 1,029-day/63-race streak continuously leading the Drivers’ Championship (since Spain 2022).
• Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will lined in first and second, forming McLaren’s 66th front row lock-out in F1, and their first in Australia since 2012.
• Fifth place for Alex Albon was – discounting the one-lap 2021 Belgian Grand Prix – Williams’ best result since the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Lance Stroll took P3. It was also their best qualifying in Melbourne since 2016.
• Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, with P4, becomes the 69th driver to score on his F1 debut.  At 18 years and 203 days, Antonelli is the second-youngest points scorer in F1 history behind Max Verstappen.
• The race’s fourteen finishers was the fewest since the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix in Brazil.

Race review

Well after testing McLaren was the favourite and Lando Norris took victory in a chaotic and drama-filled season, while it was a small margin and there is a long race to go until Abu Dhabi. Twenty-three to go, McLaren have clearly learnt from their mistakes last season and that’s what you need if you are going to fight for the championship. Red Bull weren’t as far off nether were Mercedes, but it was a terrible weekend for Ferrari, there will be renewed questions none of them new about strategy and communication.

But for the prancing horse it may have not been their best weekend but the beginning of a new era they got it horribly wrong on strategy something they cannot do if they want to challenge for the championship. It was a race where you needed to get it right as Mercedes proved they were the unlikely best of the rest and tied McLaren on points. Williams are appearing to backing up their strong testing and their best result since Baku 2017, they will be hoping they will be going forwards this year.

It was a tough start for the rookies Isack Hadjar, Jack Doohan and Gabriel Bortoletto all crashed out, joined by Liam Lawson in his first full season. But maybe redemption for Ollie Bearman after his crash in similar conditions in Sao Paulo in November and a strong debut for Kimi Antonelli who was reinstated to fourth after being given a penalty for an unsafety release. It was a decent recovery for the Italian even without the treacherous conditions, as he started the race from sixteenth making up eleven places.

So onto Shanghai and the challenge of a sprint weekend and thankfully no rain forecast in four days’ time.

Results Summary

Championship Standings