A massive rainy track, cold and inclement weather greeted the field in Melbourne , where the question of the day was whether McLaren and Lando Norris would be able to convert their excellent one-lap pace into victory.
The grid for the Australian Grand Prix had barely begun when Racing Bulls rookie Isaac Hadja r lost control of his car in a slow corner and hit the wall... After such an introduction, you could have expected chaos in the opening race. That's right.
After the start Max Verstappen immediately improved his position while Lando Norris maintained the lead, but we didn't see much continuity as Jack Doohan crashed his Alpine brutally behind . The safety car had to come out, but before that was even announced, one car was already in the wall: Carlos Sainz abandoned his Williams...
There was 30 minutes of incredible boredom while the clean-up was carried out, and that was enough time for the aforementioned circumstances to change. After eight laps behind the safety car, the race finally resumed, but nothing of note happened, unless the drying of a perfect line can be considered significant. Norris was pulling away from Verstappen , who was constantly being pressed by Piastri . The Australian soon caught up with his rival, but the truth is that it was more due to the Dutch driver's mistakes . There were many mistakes and very few exchanges of positions and moments reminiscent of the race. The situation at the front remained unchanged, Norris in the lead, Piastri behind , Verstappen following behind with a huge delay. The rest of the field did not even fit into the frame, which says a lot about the balance of power. We were almost done when Fernando Alonso decided to hit the wall with his Aston Martin, which caused a lot of confusion. Many people switched to the hard tyres, more to the medium tyres, which essentially destroyed the carefully constructed strategy that had been previously built.
After a long clean-up and laps it was time for a new restart, where the two McLarens easily held the first two places in front of Verstappen , but... But then came the rain and with it the madness: Piastri went off the track and dug in, Norris ran away for intermediate tires, Verstappen took the lead in the meantime . But the Dutchman did not control the situation for too long, it ended in a pit stop. In the meantime Lewis Hamilton took the leading position (!!), Liam Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto also in the wall.
In the end, Lando Norris also coped brilliantly with the new restart, dominating the entire race, winning the Australian Grand Prix comfortably ahead of Max Verstappen and George Russell. Not to be forgotten is the incredible fourth place for Alexander Albon and Williams, the fifth position for Andrea Kimi Antonelli, or the fact that an incredibly boring race turned into a great race in the end , with the final laps being a real battle!
Photo: AP
