Super Sainz Comes Out on Top Down Under

It was a tense race at Albert Park after championship leader Max Verstappen retired at the beginning of the race – which set up one of the most exciting Australian Grands Prix in recent memory. From shock DNFs to plucky underdog victories, let’s have a look at the highlights of the 2024 Australian Grand Prix.

Qualifying

It was a qualifying session to forget for Daniel Riccardo, who could only put his RB in 18th in front of his home fans. Joining the Aussie in the knockout zone in Q1 was Nico Hulkenberg, Pierre Gasly, and Guanyu Zhou.

Q2 saw a last-minute push from Lewis Hamilton, who was pushed out of the final top ten by Yuki Tsunoda, leaving the seven-time world champion P11.

***Hamilton after not making Q3 in Australia:***

*“I’m used to it. I’m a bit used to it now, getting knocked out of Q2. Kind of just a flat feeling. It’s not great, but yeah.”*

It was a close finish to qualifying as Carlos Sainz seemed to have the pace to challenge the Red Bulls. This surge in confidence was eventually crushed when Verstappen put in a time that separated him and Sainz by over two-tenths of a second. It was a great job by McLaren to line up P4 and P6 as well as Aston Martin who also made a double-Q3 appearance.

Sergio Perez was given a three-place grid penalty for the race after impeding Hulkenberg at Turn 13 in Q1. This promoted Lando Norris to P3, a position he would go on to maintain in the race.

Who needs an appendix?

It’s very difficult to imagine what’s been going in Carlos Sainz’s mind since the start of the year. To be blown away by a non-renewal from your team and then an unexpected appendix surgery is a lot to digest in the space of three months.

Despite the news about Lewis Hamilton replacing Sainz making waves through the world of motorsport, Sainz proved critics wrong in the opening round in Bahrain with a stunning P3 finish.

Sitting the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix out due to his surgery, he was replaced by 18-year-old Ollie Bearman for the weekend, who managed to score a healthy amount of points for the Scuderia.

Just two weeks after Sainz was recovering from the surgical procedure, he managed to pull a mighty gap, leaving Charles Leclerc in no mans land. It’s incredible to see how Sainz is racing hard with his career on the line, constantly putting in amazing performances.

The Chilli also becomes the first driver to win on return from a medical injury since Gerhard Berger at the 1997 German Grand Prix. Whether he can keep up this momentum for the remaining 21 races will have to be seen.

One thing is for sure — he’s undoubtedly one of the hottest items in the driver market right now.

Broken Bull

Having only lost out on P1 twice in the last 21 races, it’s clear that Max Verstappen’s reign over F1 is nowhere near finished yet. However, the fans didn’t wake up early for the race would have been shocked to see that the triple-world champion was out of the race.

The issue was a sticking rear brake, which was a problem ever since lights out Verstappen reported. The Dutchman retired on Lap 3 after being overtaken by Sainz a lap earlier, to the surprise of many spectators.

***Verstappen on his DNF:***

*"That's why already I felt that the car was really weird to drive in some corners. It was just very snappy."*

This retirement saw the end of yet another record-equalling streak, as Verstappen was aiming to match his record of ten F1 wins in a row. Verstappen’s last DNF was also at the Australian Grand Prix, all the way back in 2022, which was also won by a Ferrari driver.

It was a similarly disappointing race for Sergio Perez, who seemed to have excellent pace in the early stages of the race but seemed to plateau and not make much progress after overtaking Fernando Alonso for P5.

However, Verstappen’s pace has looked bulletproof in both qualifying and the race. We’re sure he’ll be back to winning form very soon. Although with 25 fewer points than he wanted, will this retirement come back to bite the 26-year-old later on in the season?

Mercedes struggle

Whilst teams including Ferrari and McLaren enjoyed their successes, the same can’t be said for Mercedes. The Brackley outfit suffered a double-DNF in Melbourne, with Hamilton retiring from the race on Lap 13 with a complete engine failure.

HAMILTON HAS AN ENGINE FAILURE ❌ #AusGP #F1
— Race Reaction (@RaceReaction) March 24, 2024

Russell crashed out in a freak accident on the final lap, which saw the race finish under the Virtual Safety Car, neutralising the end of the race. Whilst Hamilton’s retirement was extremely unfortunate, Russell’s was completely unexpected.

The 26-year-old was chasing Alonso for sixth at the end of the race, in an attempt to secure a few more points for Mercedes. Russell was around half a second behind Alonso approaching the Turn 6:7 complex but lost control of his W15 after Alonso seemingly slowed down.

The Spaniard was summoned to the race stewards after the race and was handed a 20-second time penalty and three penalty points for “dangerous driving,” according to the official report from the race stewards.

***Official statement from the race stewards:***

*"Should Alonso have the right to try a different approach to the corner? Yes. Should Alonso be responsible for dirty air, that ultimately caused the incident? No.”*

The document goes on to mention that telemetry revealed Alonso lifted off the throttle 100 metres before the point where he did usually, suggesting the 42-year-old intended to block Russell from getting past.

"In this case we consider that Alonso affirmatively choosing to perform an unusual manoeuvre at this point to be an aggravating circumstance, as opposed to a simple mistake."

This incident ended Mercedes’ 62-race-long scoring streak, equalling its own record. The last time the Silver Arrows didn’t score points at all was the 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, almost three years ago.

We now head to Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix, where Verstappen will be sure to bounce back to his winning ways. We’ll be sure to cover all the latest news and rumours here on Race Reaction.