With the first weekend of the Formula one season now complete, the host of F1 observers who believed that McLaren have had the best of the winter car development, were proven right. The team were cruising to their 52nd ever 1-2 finish, when the rain returned late in the Melbourne race causing havoc throughout the field.
Norris and Piastri misjudged the grip in the penultimate corner with both leaving the circuit and scrabbling to return to the asphalt. Norris made it back ahead of Verstappen, but home boy Piastri remained stuck in the grass and finally rejoined at the rear of the pack.
The final result saw Verstappen claim P2 as Norris racked up his his fifth Grand Prix win, all in the last nineteen F1 weekends and he now equals the world champions win tally over the same time period. The race result meant for the first tine since the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix, another driver besides Max Verstappen was now leading the drivers’ title race and the intrigue did not stop there.
Horner suggests Norris was mentally suffering
During the post race interviews a number of spicy comments were made, which will surely be just the start of a variety of developing stories. Christian Horner made a mild attempt to suggest that Lando Norris may still be the ‘bottler’ under pressure that he earned somewhat a reputation for doing in 2024.
“I think Lando looked like he tightened a little bit at the end of the race. He made a mistake at Turn 6, went half off the track. That gave Max a little bit of a run at a track that’s very difficult to overtake, and then the next lap, he got another run,” said Horner in his debrief interview with Sky F1.
McLaren boss Andreas Stella’s reposte was to suggest that I fact Norris had damaged his car during the mistake at the penultimate corner. This then allowed Verstappen the opportunity to hound Lando for the final three laps of the Grand Prix.
Lando Norris was on the front foot in his interviews too. He claimed that despite Pastri’s misfortune, McLaren had the best lineup of the front running teams today. Flanked by Max Verstappen and George Russell who finished third, Norris stated of McLaren: “We’re the favourites, we are the team to beat, mainly because we have two drivers up there pushing each other,” the 25-year-old said in a nod to his teammate Oscar Piastri.
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“Do I think me and Oscar working together yesterday in terms of pushing each other allowed us to get one-and-a-half, one tenth more than the two drivers here because their teammates aren’t as equipped and experienced? Yes,” said the race winner.
Of course Max Verstappen fought most of the race against the McLaren pairing which is always an advantageous for team mates to find themselves in. Had the race been a regular dry weather event, McLaren would have had the choice of which driver to pit first, with Red Bull having to cover that move.
Then McLaren may split the tyre strategy between their drivers, something red Bull can’t do with Liam Lawson at the back of the field. Kimi Antonelli also fitted the Norris depiction of an inexperienced driver and in qualifying he managing just P16 while team mate Russell started the Grand Prix in P4. Yet the Mercedes’ replacement for Lewis Hamilton showed his worth come race day as Antonelli was the only rookie driver to finish the race, with the rest having out their cars in the wall in tricky conditions.
Further, the young Italian made his way through the field as the rains came a second time and crossed the line in P4 having made an decisive move to overtake Alex Albon who had resisted the attacks from Lewis Hamilton for half the race. The stewards however had decided Mercedes had released Antonelli form his pit stop in an unsafe fashion into the path into the path Nico Hulkenberg and awarded him a five second penalty.
Antonelli shines as rookies fail
This dropped him behind the Williams driver into fifth place, but Mercedes decided to appeal the decision. It is highly unusual for this kind of penalty to be questioned, given the decisions on unsafe releases by the stewards are mostly slam dunk affairs.
However, TV footage from the roll-hoop camera along with the helicopter shots shown during the race clearly demonstrated that Antonelli had in fact checked his mirror carefully and he ensured he waited before moving onto the fast lane when it was safe. He was rewarded with his fourth place finish being reinstated which moved Mercedes ahead of Red Bull Racing in the constructors’ championship.
Antonelli already appears a more accomplished driver than Red Bull’s Liam Lawson, who has now started twelve F1 Grand Prix. It will be Kimi Antonelli who loads the pressure onto Lawson as the season progresses as it will be his results which will affect Red Bull the most in terms of staying in touch with the McLaren pair.
Reflecting on a roller coaster weekend, the Mercedes protege said: “It was super difficult at the start, and behind the safety car the tyres were cooling down massively. The grip was nowhere. And also with all those white lines, it’s super, super tricky because as soon as you go over them, even in high-speed corners, you lose the grip all of a sudden.”
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Antonelli even spun during the opening laps but showed immense composure as he recovered to finish just outside the podium places. “I was lucky to spin in a place where it was safe. After I had the mistake, it kind of hurt my confidence a little bit. The team did great to calm me down and get me back into the rhythm, and made all the right calls,” said Antonelli after the race.
Mercedes CEO and team boss Toto Wolff was impressed with his teenagers maturity, telling Sky F1: “Some very good drivers spun or hit the wall, it was easier to not finish than finish. He kept his cool and it was very impressive to see. It shows he has a good future so long as the trajectory carries on as it is.”
Kimi Antonelli has firmly marked himself out as the rookie to watch this season, and already Jack Doohan and Liam Lawson will be feeling the pressure with drivers ready in the wings to take their race seats.
How Red Bull strategy error cost Verstappen the GP in Melbourne
The Formula One season opener in Australia saw all four seasons pass over the Melbourne circuit in less than two hours. On the whole it appeared that the McLaren pair were in control of the Grand Prix and heading for the team’s 52nd 1-2 finish until late in the race back came the rains causing chaos from front to back of the field.
Leading the race were Norris, Piastri and Max Verstappen was in third place, all by now running on dry weather tyres as the rains came again. Both McLaren cars left the circuit at the penultimate corner, which allowed Max to close the gap and pass Piastri who was stricken on the grass.
Having experienced an off for both their cars, McLaren blinked first and called Norris in for the intermediate tyre, whilst Max ploughed around again on the medium tyre. Traffic for Norris meant that next time around Verstappen was over 21 seconds ahead of Norris, requiring just 19 seconds for a full speed pit stop. Yet Red Bull made the decision that the dry weather tyre would be good for the remainder of the race…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
