Some layout changes to Albert Park which not everyone was happy about. 4 DRS zones seemed very extreme, so it was nice to see one get removed. Interestingly, even with 3 DRS zones, the passing wasn't easy.
Ferrari and Leclerc absolutely dominated that race. Fast pace, easy to drive, best tire wear, fast pitstop. It all went right for Charles. It has been asked, what could Leclerc do with a proper car, well he showed it today. Fantastic drive. Carlos unfortunately had a terrible weekend. A lot of bad luck went his way, including a steering wheel swap just a minute before the formation lap and that seemed to cause his bad start. Sadly his race ended with his own mistake. That's racing though. The car did show some horrendous porpoising in the race, so that issue still needs to be rectified.
Red Bull did not look good at this track. Max really struggled with the setup and balance and despite moments of being fast, they never had a fight against Charles. Add insult to injury with a car that isn't even reliable, and their championship hopes are slipping away. Perez can be happy with a P2 result, especially since his pace was just ahead of the struggling Mercedes.
Mercedes can certainly be happy today. Their race starts again show be extremely strong. Oddly, their porpoising was not as bad as in other races, and whatever compromises they have done to fix that didn't seem to hurt their pace as this was the most competitive they shown all season. Russell certainly benefited with some good fortune, and unbelievably now sits 2nd in the WDC. Lewis probably would have finished 3rd without Russell getting lucky, but the best points achieved for the team. If the car gets sorted out and is fast as they claim, then they are still in a pretty good position for the championships.
McLaren performing where they should be. Hard to say if they will continue to fight as the best 3rd or 4th best team in upcoming races as their car seems to be track dependent. Lando a usual solid result, but it was great to see Ricciardo have similar pace as his teammate in front of his home crowd.
Alpine likely missed a great opportunity for a very great result. Decent points for Ocon, but Alonso had the pace to do so much more. After bad luck in quali, his race strategy just didn't go his way, and then with the medium tires he couldn't make the passes and destroyed his tires very quickly.
Alfa Romeo at times appear to be a car capable of fighting for 5th place, then suddenly can be fighting outside the top 10. Bottas really had to fight for that 8th place and Zhou continues to get up to speed.
AlphaTauri still surprises me they are not faster. Gasly was arguably the 2021 most valuable driver, but even he is making errors with their 2022 car. Tsunoda looked to have a shot at some points, but somehow finished 15th despite 4 faster cars having issues. Barely getting points has to be considered a disappointment for that team.
Williams get their first points which is a huge result. Albon was amazing during the race and again shows the strange characteristics of the tires. Nearly the full race on 1 set of tires, and his times were good, especially considering being in perhaps the worst chassis. Albon's gap over Latifi seems to be even bigger than Russell over Latifi.
Aston Martin had a rough rough weekend. Give a hand to their mechanics for persevering though the drives wrecking the cars. Lance Stroll somehow was up their battling for points. His 5 second penalty for weaving may have been harsh considering what we have seen Verstappen do in the past. But when you factor in his bully move on Bottas that pushed him off the track, he probably deserved a penalty, not even factoring his bone head move in qualifying. Vettel had a terrible opening to his season, and another mistake that wrecked another car. I'm sure Lawrence Stroll will have some words behind closed doors and potentially destroy the team's morale even more.
Haas did not have the pace they showed in the first two races. Hopefully they don't fall back to the bottom of the grid. Mick finally got the best of his teammate, but he still made plenty of mistakes and it was far from a great drive. Magnusson came in feeling a bit ill and just didn't drive well all weekend.
Driver of the Day: While it would be easy to pick Leclerc, I am going to go with Alex Albon. The Williams is trash, he destroyed his teammate, set faster laps than the fastest cars around him despite being on tires 50+ laps old, and got a point to show for it. That's a proper challenge and exceeded any hopes or expectations.
Bookmarks