Martin Brundle on the results of the Australian Grand Prix

Martin Brundle, former Formula 1 driver and now a popular commentator on Sky Sports, analyzes the events of the past weekend in his column devoted to the results of the Australian Grand Prix…

Ferrari and Charles Leclerc really beat everyone with their F1-75. Scuderia’s new car proved to be of very high quality, fast and has been able to handle all circuits well so far, including Barcelona, ​​Bahrain, Jeddah and the updated ring at Melbourne’s Albert Park.

Leclerc went to the next level and showed both speed and consistency. If he had to drive previous Ferrari cars to the limit of technical possibilities, which sometimes led to serious accidents, it seems that now he always has some kind of reserve. The new regulations suit him, so Charles drives more confidently.

Two pole positions, two wins, a second place and three best laps in three races confirm this.

For Carlos Sainz, his team-mate, the Australian weekend was a terrible one: on Saturday he was unable to drive a very good qualifying lap because his friend Fernando Alonso crashed his car due to technical problems and red flags appeared on the track.

As a result, he started from 9th position, which does not correspond to his real abilities, and at the very last moment the steering wheel of his car was changed, which made the start of the race a nightmare. Then he tried to get out of the middle of the pack on hard tires, but he didn’t have enough stamina, he overdid it and it all ended with a departure from the track.

Now the team can oblige Sainz to cover the back of Leclerc, although much depends on the further development of events: what if Carlos can win the next two races? This should absolutely not be ruled out.

Since Max Verstappen won once, but retired twice, he is already 46 points behind Leclerc and only 6th in the individual standings.

Max openly called the situation “unacceptable”, speaking of reliability issues, although the team later tried to smooth things out a bit. However, he withdrew from the Australian Grand Prix due to a fuel leak and failed to finish in Bahrain due to another failure, also related to the fuel system.

The end of the championship is still a long way off, but Leclerc’s advantage is already almost equal to the points for two wins, and now Ferrari has a faster car.

New cars on the renewed circuit

It’s hard to say how much more interesting the race at Albert Park was due to the track being made wider and faster, but the overtaking situation for Turn 3 and Turn 11 got better. We haven’t seen such an exciting fight on this track in a long time and 128 thousand people watched it from the stands. However, it is also impossible to call the breed exemplary classic.

The battle, especially in the middle of the pack, was fiercer and even when the riders were fighting wheel to wheel, there was almost no contact between the cars. One of the key benefits of the new cars’ aerodynamics is that they almost never lose downforce and traction, not only when following each other, but also when driving side by side.

Think last year’s accident that ended the Hamilton-Verstappen duel at Silverstone, as well as many other ridiculous incidents where the influence of the aerodynamics of the previous generation of machines manifested itself more than we thought.

Since many of the previous aerodynamic deficiencies have been eliminated, it is clear that the drivers in “close combat” have much better control over the behavior of their cars. Of course, the situation is also influenced by the fact that many teams warn their drivers: if they beat the cars, there is simply nothing to perform on.

In this regard, for Aston Martin, everything is worse than ever. Sebastian Vettel crashed into the bump stop twice, Lance Stroll also crashed the car and he was also found guilty of a collision with Williams driver Nicholas Latifi. The team probably brought a shipping container with carbon fragments from Australia. But all this will result in decent expenses, although in circumstances with limited budgets, all the money will have to be spent on modernization of equipment.

Mercedes minimizes losses

The Mercedes team in Australia has already performed much more confidently, and the same can be said of McLaren, whose cars are equipped with the same Mercedes engines. And yet, although the safety car came out twice and the pack became more compact, George Russell lost more than 25 seconds to Leclair and the McLaren drivers in general by 53. The deficit is more than serious.

Russell was lucky when the safety car came out, but to take advantage of the luck you have to be quick before and after the pit stop. George definitely showed good pace, was not inferior to Lewis, neither in qualifying nor in the race, and it looked like it was given to him without much difficulty.

Now Russell is second in the personal standings – a result of his masterful, flawless handling and the reliability of the Mercedes car. But to build on the success, you need the team to quickly increase the efficiency of the machine.

Lewis was upset to finish fourth but his W13 engine overheated. Although the team can be happy that they worked better with rubber than Red Bull in the first half of the race. Certainly Mercedes is excellent at operating in the mode of minimizing losses.

About those who still excelled in Melbourne

McLaren has managed to make the MCL36’s aerodynamics work more or less effectively and we can expect the team to continue to improve. Lando Norris and local Australian hero Daniel Ricciardo were equally strong and their cars were quite fast and reliable.

Valtteri Bottas confidently drove another race for Alfa Romeo and finished 8th, and it can be assumed that behind the wheel of a faster car he could still fight for victories.

The pace of Alpine F1 has been encouraging, which cannot be said about the weekend’s results. Esteban Ocon took 7th place and lost more than a minute to the leader. Fernando Alonso showed excellent pace all weekend and could have started from the front two rows had it not been for technical difficulties in qualifying. In Melbourne he earned nothing and finished last in 17th place.

And now about Alex Albon, who started from last position as Williams was unable to supply the FIA ​​with the necessary amount of fuel for testing after qualifying.

Alex managed to ride almost the entire distance on one set of hard rubber and only made a mandatory pit stop on the last lap. The whole way he battled numerous rivals in the middle of the pack and managed to earn a point for 10th place.

The Grove team worked well and last Sunday was an important day in the history of the Williams-Albon partnership.

In Melbourne, a significant portion of the public wore orange McLaren baseball caps in honor of Ricciardo, a local hero. I can imagine what the stands will look like in Imola, where the next race will take place.