A massive rainy track, cold and unfriendly weather greeted the field in Melbourne, where the question of the day was whether McLaren and Lando Norris could convert their impressive single-lap pace into a victory.
Just as the Australian Grand Prix field was about to start the formation lap, Isaac Hadja, the rookie from Racing Bulls lost control of his car in a slow corner and crashed into the wall... After such a lead-in, we could expect a real chaos for the season-opening race. It came true.
After the start, Max Verstappen immediately gained a position, while Lando Norris maintained his leading position, but we could not see much continuity as further back Jack Doohan crashed the Alpine badly. The safety car came out, but just as they barely announced this fact, we saw another car in the wall: Carlos Sainz had thrown away the Williams...
An unbearable boring 30 minutes followed, during which a rescue operation took place, and this time was more than enough for the aforementioned conditions to change. Meanwhile, after eight laps behind the safety car, the race finally restarted, but nothing significant happened, unless we consider the drying of the ideal line as such. Norris was increasingly pulling away from Verstappen, who was constantly being approached by Piastri. The Australian soon managed to catch his opponent, but the truth is that this was more due to the Dutchman's mistakes. There were many errors and very few position changes, and moments that reminded us of racing. At the front, the situation remained unchanged, Norris led, followed by Piastri, while Verstappen was trailing behind them by a chasm. The rest of the field could barely fit into a cutaway, which says a lot about the power dynamics. We were almost ready to give up on the race when Fernando Alonso had a change of heart, crashed the Aston Martin into the wall, and gathered the boys. Many switched to hard tires, and several to mediums, thus fundamentally overturning the previously well-constructed strategy.
After long circling and debris clearing, the new start could take place, where the two McLarens easily maintained the first two places before Verstappen, but... Then the rain came and with it the madness: Piastri slid off and buried himself, Norris fled for intermediate tires, while Verstappen took the lead. But the Dutchman couldn't control the situation for long, the pit lane was the end. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton stood in the lead (!!), Liam Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto also crashed into the wall.
Finally, Lando Norris also perfectly executed the new restart, who practically dominated the entire race and easily won the Australian Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen and George Russell. We must not forget about Alexander Albon and the incredible fourth place of Williams, Andrea Kimi Antonelli in fifth place, and also that a dreadfully boring race turned into a great race in the end, with real battles in the last laps!
Photo: AP
