Pecking order in Formula 1 now clearer after three races.
Formula 1’s return to Australia after a three-year absence resulted in a comprehensive victory for runaway title leader Charles Leclerc and a disastrous outcome for reigning champion Max Verstappen.
Autoweek picks through the main talking points.
Dominant Leclerc Opens Huge Points Lead
Charles Leclerc was completely dominant at Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix. He claimed pole position, led every single lap, set the fastest lap—on the final lap—and bagged the victory, bringing him a Grand Slam. Leclerc’s margin of victory was 20.5 seconds, despite a Safety Car period bunching the pack just before mid-race.
FINAL RESULTS, PRINTABLE PDF
At times in the opening stint of the Grand Prix, he was a second per lap clear of Max Verstappen. It was a totally imperious display. He already has a 34-point lead in the standings just three rounds into the season. But in typical sportsman fashion there was no sense of resting on his laurels.
“It’s still very early in the season obviously, it’s good to be in the lead of the championship, I lead by 34,” he said. “34 is always good to take wherever you are in the calendar but I don’t want to focus too much on the championship for now.”
Leclerc’s commanding position in the standings comes after two years in which Ferrari was not able to compete for victories. On occasion Leclerc overstepped the limit in his attempt to drag Ferrari’s machinery higher than it deserved, but with a rapid and compliant title-leading machine under his belt that approach has been modified.
“I’ve been in this situation in junior categories but to be here in Formula 1 means a lot, especially after the last two years, and especially with Ferrari,” he said. “It feels incredible now I know underneath me I have a car capable of winning and I don’t have to overdo things or do something spectacular to get one or two positions as I know it is in the car and I just have to do the job.”
Next for Ferrari? Its home race at Imola. It could be quite some party.
Three races into the F1 season and already Max Verstappen and Red Bull appear lost.
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Verstappen’s Title Defense Hanging by a Thread
It is only race three but Max Verstappen’s title defense is already in a ropey state. Verstappen couldn’t take the fight to Leclerc in race trim even before his retirement, his second from three Grands Prix, following his late failure in Bahrain. Verstappen is a whopping 46 points behind Leclerc in the standings after his retirement in Australia, suspected to be related to a fuel system issue, which was unrelated to the Bahrain failure. But Verstappen was not just thinking about the points situation, having been running a distant second to Leclerc when the RB18 packed up.
“It definitely did surprise me a bit more than I would’ve liked from reliability (perspective) but also balance-wise, that I’m struggling so much,” said Verstappen. “Just really hit and miss. Also in the race, we had terrible tire degradation. As you can see, we’re just not in the right window. That’s still a second place, but if you want to fight for the title, you need to be ahead of Ferrari and they are definitely on top of a lot of things, much better than us.
“We need to be more reliable; we need to be faster; we need to be better on tires.”
Verstappen was never as far as 46 points behind during his title-winning season in 2021 and accepted he is “already massively down in the championship so now I don’t even think about the title fight. At this stage I think we need 45 races!” He added that “at the moment there’s no point to believe in it (winning the title).”
Carlos Sainz gets beached in the gravel in Australia.
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Sainz Sinks with Embarrassing Error
Carlos Sainz’s weekend was undone in qualifying by elements out of his control but in race trim he wrecked his own prospects. Sainz was left only ninth on the grid after a red flag ruined his first push lap, before an engine glitch delayed his return to action, leaving him unable to carry out the two warm-up laps the Ferrari requires to get the tires in the right window.
His lone permitted push lap was on underprepared tires and he slid his way to ninth. On Sunday Sainz had a similar issue to qualifying whereby a couple of buttons on his steering wheel were malfunctioning and it had to be changed on the grid. As a consequence the back-up steering wheel wasn’t as accurately tuned in and Sainz suffered anti-stall at the start, dropping five positions from ninth to 14th.
As he worked to recover by passing Mick Schumacher, he went hot into the fast Turn 9/10 chicane, spun through the grass, and wound up beached in the gravel. Sainz had a lot of setbacks in Melbourne out of his control but ultimately a score of zero was on him. It marked a rare retirement for Sainz, his first failure to finish since Russia 2020, but the out-of-character mistake means he is already 38 points behind his on-form teammate.
“I tried to make up the places in the first laps and clearly made a mistake when the tyre was probably not ready to start overtaking,” said Sainz. “I haven’t been perfect this weekend, we haven’t been perfect, and we need to analyze what we did wrong and get better.”
Kevin Magnussen finished out of the points for the first time this season.
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Haas Has Worst Weekend of Year
Haas knew it would not repeat the heroics of Bahrain every weekend but Australia was a tricky event for the squad. It didn’t quite get the set-up right from the outset and while it made gains it was marooned in the competitive midfield, starting 15th and 16th, and finished 13th and 14th.
The drivers didn’t help either, with both Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher making mistakes in the race, but neither were catastrophic setbacks that realistically cost them points.
“I think in terms of pace we were not too far off, it’s just unfortunate that there’s not a huge amount of passing opportunities here,” said Schumacher. “Lots was learned, some positives, so we’ve just got to take it away with us and hopefully be better in Imola.”
Haas split strategies, with Schumacher going medium/hard and Magnussen hard/medium, but the Dane’s prospects were ruined by the safety car period caused by Sebastian Vettel crashing.
“We always make sure that the safety car is out at the wrong time,” joked Haas boss Guenther Steiner. “But seriously though—sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you get unlucky. The car was strong and the drivers did a good job so we know if we qualify better we can score points, and that is what we keep on trying to do.”
Haas has now drops to seventh in the standings but knows it has a tidy package that has points potential at each Grand Prix. Melbourne was simply a messier weekend and it missed the boat.
The Standings
Formula 1 Driver Championship standings following the Australian Grand Prix:
- Charles Leclerc, Ferrari 71
- George Russell, Mercedes 37
- Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari 33
- Sergio Perez, Red Bull 30
- Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes 28
- Max Verstappen, Red Bull 25
- Esteban Ocon Alpine 20
- Lando Norris, McLaren 16
- Kevin Magnussen, Haas 12
- Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo 12
- Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren 8
- Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri 6
- Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri 4
- Fernando Alonso, Alpine 2
- Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo 1
- Alex Albon, Williams 1
- Mick Schumacher, Haas 0
- Lance Stroll, Aston Martin 0
- Nico Hulkenberg, Aston Martin 0
- Nicholas Latifi, Williams 0
- Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin 0
Keyword: How Ferrari, Charles Leclerc Opened Huge F1 Points Lead with Austalian Grand Prix Win