Race week review
F1 finally returned to Australia after three long years, and what is normally the opening race of the season was the third on this year’s calendar. The wait was well worth it; as Daniel Ricciardo, who has previously mentioned missing the opportunity to have his home race and see his family affected his mental health finally returned home. He was the star of the show, as home fans welcomed their hero.
Sebastian Vettel, who missed the first two races of the season due to Covid, returned to the grid to get his 2022 season started. The Aston Martin team had work to do to catch up with the other teams ahead of them.
The biggest change to the track was the old Turn 9, which became a straight. The weekend also started off with four DRS zones but for safety reasons one of them was scrapped.
Ferrari kicked off the weekend with their continuous impressive form as Carlos Sainz topped the chart in FP1 and Charles Leclerc did the same in FP2. The prancing horse just seemed to have an edge over its competitors. Red Bull, Ferrari’s closest challengers were not too far off the pace in both of Friday’s sessions.
McLaren, who have had a difficult start to the season compared to their great start in the 2021 season, surprised many people with their pace over the weekend. This positive information was definitely helpful to Ricciardo who has not had the best of luck in his home GP over the years. They were fifth and eighth in FP1 and, eighth and tenth in FP2.
Sebastian Vettel’s first race of the season did not get off to a great start as his car lost power near the end of the first session, bringing out a red flag. “Fireman Seb” made his appearance once again with the fire extinguisher as smoke was billowing out of his car, before he scootered around the track, which he was fined €5000 for after the stewards investigated the incident. The team were unable to fix his car in time for the second session, His teammate, Lance Stroll, brought out a red flag in FP2 when a piece of his Aston Martin wheel cover flew off.
On Saturday morning in FP3, Lando Norris’s McLaren was the fastest car on track, ahead of Charles Leclerc. It was a difficult session for many as several drivers went off track. The two Aston Martin drivers brought out red flags, the first, when Sebastian Vettel hit the wall at Turn 10 and the second was when Lance Stroll had a late crash at Turn 11, ending the session early.
In qualifying, traffic caused a lot of problems. Stroll’s car was fixed on time for the session, but a big talking point was his incident with Nicholas Latifi. The pair came together as Latifi let Stroll past him, but Stroll then slowed down and Latifi tried to get past again. Stroll was later handed a three place grid penalty.
Vettel who did not seem like he would get a run in qualifying, was given a chance by the amazing efforts of the mechanics who used the time during the red flag to get him out.
As heroic as the effort was, with very little running time on track for the German, he did not make it out of Q1. Following him out were Albon, Magnussen, Latifi, Stroll and Magnussen. After his brilliant start on his return to F1, there was much surprise that the Dane was eliminated and outqualified by his young teammate.
Bottas missed out on Q3 for the first time in 103 races, an impressive streak that came to an end. The Red Bull’s and Ferrari’s were on top of their game, ahead of the rest of their competitors in Q2. Both McLaren’s made it into Q3, the first time this season, cementing their impressive improvement so far. Going out along with Bottas was Ocon, Zhou, Schumacher and Tsunoda.
Leclerc had set the fastest time in Q3, followed by Perez and Verstappen before Alonso’s Alpine stopped with a hydraulic issue and broufht out a red flag. The Spaniard had matched Leclerc first sector and was two tenths up in the second sector before the issue. Carlos Sainz was caught out by the red flag as he was on a good lap, just short of the line before the red flag came out.
When the green lights showed, Verstappen improved and set his car P1, but only for a few moments as the man of the moment, Charles Leclerc took pole position.
Perez, who was under investigation for not slowing under yellow flags in Q1, was in third place and Lando Norris, building on his team’s impressive pace qualified in fourth, just two tenths of his teammate Ricciardo, in seventh.
It was a relatively good session for Mercedes who qualified in fifth and sixth, Hamilton, a tenth ahead of Russell. Ocon qualified eighth, while the other Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz, only qualified in ninth, going wide at Turn 10 and finished a second and a half behind his teammate on pole, leaving Alonso in tenth.
It was later announced that Alex Albon of Williams, who was to serve a three place grid penalty from the previous race, was disqualified from the qualifying session for being unable to produce the required one litre of fuel sample.
There were to be some changes to the grid before the start of the race, Albon would start last after his disqualification behind Lance Stroll who was handed his three place grid penalty. Perez and Leclerc, who were both under investigation for separate incidents in qualifying the day before, kept their positions as the stewards took no further action.
Race Report
It was another weekend on top for Charles Leclerc and the Ferrari team, with a dominant win in Melbourne to mark the return of Formula One to Australia. Unfortunately, teammate Carlos Sainz did not finish the race following his retirement on the second lap, but this didn’t affect Ferrari’s top step on the Constructor’s Championship, which they continue to lead.
While Ferrari lost one car in the race, so to did main competitors Red Bull. Reigning champion Max Verstappen once again had to retire from the race due to an issue with the car – is the Red Bull Power Train not all it’s cracked up to be? However, teammate Sergio Perez came home in second place, allowing the team to leave Australia with a good haul of points.
The podium was rounded off by Mercedes newcomer George Russell, his first podium with the team. Teammate and former champion Lewis Hamilton came in fourth, suggesting that Mercedes may be back on the right track with car development and slowly making their way back to the front of the grid.
This weekend was similarly better for Mercedes customers McLaren, with Lando Norris finishing in 5th and home hero Daniel Ricciardo in 6th, the best result for the team so far.
Esteban Ocon took seventh place for Alpine, bringing home a few points for the French team. However, Fernando Alonso finished in seventeenth after a late pit stop in order to try for the fastest lap – which he almost achieved, until a stellar lap from Charles Leclerc stopped him in his tracks.
An excellent weekend for Valtteri Bottas saw him capitalise on the mistakes of his rivals, allowing him to take eighth place in the race for Alfa Romeo, with rookie teammate Zhou Guanyu in 11th place once more, another strong finish for the Chinese driver.
Pierre Gasly finished in ninth place for Alpha Tauri, his second points finish of the season, after a late final lap lock-up saw him lose eighth place to Valtteri Bottas. Teammate Yuki Tsunoda finished in fifteenth place for the team.
One of the most incredible drives this weekend had to be from returning racer Alex Albon, in his third race for Williams. Albon raced on the same set of hard tires on which he started for fifty-seven out of the fifty-eight laps, eventually pitting on the final lap but remaining in the points at tenth place.
It was a relatively good weekend for Haas with Mick Schumacher finishing in thirteenth after missing the race in Saudi Arabia, and Kevin Magnussen in fourteenth. Schumacher was quick to avoid contact during the race and showed excellent racing skills throughout.
The less said the better about Aston Martin this weekend. After crashes for both drivers throughout the practice and qualifying sessions, Sebastian Vettel left the race in a similar fashion on Sunday after his car hit the barriers. While Lance Stroll did finish the race, he did so in twelfth place, following a five second penalty for weaving in front of Bottas.
By Leslie & Tara
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