From a hospital bed to the top step of the podium: Sainz wins in a spectacular Ferrari the one-two!

(Cover picture: F1 - X)

What a race in Melbourne, and what an unexpected one-two for Ferrari! Carlos Sainz grabs his third career victory, returning from an appendectomy just over two weeks ago, ahead of his teammate Leclerc and the McLaren of Lando Norris, who in turn was followed by local hero Oscar Piastri.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

As usual, the final classification follows (to which we must add a 20 s penalty for Alonso, from P6 to P8, which we will talk about later), and off we go with our analysis!

Verstappen immediately out of contention, the race winbecomes a 4-way affair between Ferrari and McLaren

The twists and turns began immediately in Melbourne, with Carlos Sainz attacking and overtaking an unusually struggling Max Verstappen on lap 2. While on the one hand we all thought it was a mistake that could have caused him to lose the lead of the race, from the very next lap we understood there was something wrong with his RB20...

Mark Horsburgh / Motorsport Images

The blueish smoke coming from the rear right corner highlighted an overheating problem in the braking system, and once the temperatures skyrocketed, there was even an explosion of the brake drum as Max approached the pit lane to close his Australian Grand Prix with a DNF.

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

From that moment on, once the favorite to win was out (we'll never know if the Ferraris could have given him a run for his money under normal conditions), the race became a 4-way affair, with the two Ferraris and the two McLarens taking the lead. Among the four front runners, the performance advantage of Carlos Sainz appeared clear, as by running in clean air he was able to extend his gap on Norris enough to afford a safety buffer, just in case the English team's strategists had opted for an undercut on him.

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

There was then an undercut, but it was triggered by Ferrari: when Leclerc pulled into the pits on lap 8 to switch to Hard tyres, he forced Norris to extend his initial stint on the Mediums until lap 13, in the hope for the latter to hold a grip advantage that could be used later on in order to regain P2.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

This strategic move by the Woking team, actually a bit forced, turned out to be wrong to such an extent that Piastri himself, who had followed Leclerc into the pits, found himself ahead of his teammate... This situation required a team order from the McLaren pitwall to reinstate the more advantageous running positions, as Norris held the fastest race pace also by virtue - as mentioned - of fresher tyres. The issue in this strategic match was that the "swap" between the two put Lando behind Charles by about 3.5 seconds, a buffer the Ferrari driver made treasure of in order to maintain second place until the chequered flag.

Analysis of the race pace held by the two Ferraris and the two McLarens

Analysis of the race pace held by the two Ferraris and the two McLarens

In general, today Ferrari and McLaren were equivalent performance-wise: despite the Maranello team's one-two finish, from an "aseptic" analysis of the laptimes it can be seen how Leclerc and (partially) Sainz suffered from slightly higher tyre degradation than the two McLaren drivers at the end of each stint. When a race features a similar unfolding, it becomes vital to maintain track position on your opponents and neutralize their strengths. From this point of view, the Ferrari strategists were perfect with their undercut on Norris...

A big gap behind the top four: bad Sunday for the other top teams...

Extending such evaluation also to the other top teams (with due considerations on the DNFs of Verstappen and Hamilton, who had unspecified Power Unit issues), we can see the performance difference between the first four at the finish line and the others. Today Red Bull, Mercedes and Aston Martin - right in that order - had a difficult Sunday, dealing with graining issues that irreversibly raised their laptimes throughout the race.

Analysis of the race pace held by Sergio Perez, George Russell and Fernando Alonso

Analysis of the race pace held by Sergio Perez, George Russell and Fernando Alonso

Analysis of the race pace held by the drivers of Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes and Aston Martin

Analysis of the race pace held by the drivers of Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes and Aston Martin

In fact, as can be seen by averaging each race stint - and removing the laps that can be considered outliers because of the Virtual Safety Car, in the laps run on Hard tyres the average gap of Perez, Russell and the two Aston Martin drivers against the top four is well above half a second per lap, which excluded the aforementioned drivers from any podium ambition...

Analysis of the average laptimes for each stint - Australian GP

Analysis of the average laptimes for each stint - Australian GP

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, it would have been interesting to study what Verstappen could have done without the problem that led to his DNF, because judging by the race pace of his teammate Perez, it would have been difficult for the World Champion to extend his winning streak, which now stands at 9 races, one step away from the record that Max himself had set during 2023.

Dreadful crash for Russell, but luckily he emerges unscathed

When everything in the point paying positions seemed frozen, right on the last lap the cameras suddenly focused on George Russell's Mercedes W15, almost flipped in the middle of the track, approximately after Turn 6.

The stewards neutralized the race triggering a Virtual Safety Car, but in our opinion - as also of Russell himself, who asked for it via radio - a red flag would have been more appropriate. The position of his car on the track was too dangerous, and as luck would have it, no driver hit the Englishman...

In the aftermath, the replay of the accident showed how in Turn 6 George's Mercedes oversteered - most likely triggered by the proximity to Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin AMR24 - which sent him into the gravel and subsequently, after a quite harsh collision with the barrier, once again in the middle of the track. The stewards, looking at the images, decided to penalize Alonso for having deliberately slowed down when approaching Turn 6, as the Spaniard, according to them, would have caused an evasive action with this maneuver which sent Russell into the wall.

I hope there is no need to comment further on such a decision which, if applied to every duel would reduce Formula 1 to mere exchanges of positions favoured by DRS. In Formula 1, maneuvers like Alonso's, aimed at compromising the apex speed of the following car, have always been carried out, and I find it shameful that these can be punished with a 20 second penalty and 3 points on the superlicence, as happened today.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

For the record, as a result of this penalty Fernando went from sixth to eighth final position, also behind his teammate Lance Stroll (P6) and Yuki Tsunoda (P7), who ran a very clean race today which rewarded him with six very valuable points for the team from Faenza.

Behind the Japanese Visa CashApp RB's driver and the penalized Alonso we find the two Haas of Hulkenberg (P9) and Magnussen (P10), who will also be happy with the three points brought to their team: a result which, as already said several times this year, shouldn't be underestimated considering there are 5 teams with the potential to fill the entire top ten at every race.

How much has changed in the standings heading into the Japanese Grand Prix?

Ferrari's one-two sees the championship in a completely different light to two weeks ago: now Leclerc (47 points) is second in the Drivers' Championship behind Verstappen (51 points), while Sainz (40 points) rises to fourth position behind Perez (46 points). In the Constructors' Championship, also considering the contribution of Ollie Bearman in Saudi Arabia, Ferrari is now in second position just 4 points behind Red Bull, to be precise at 97 points.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The Japanese Grand Prix is scheduled to take place in two weeks, exceptionally in the first part of the season. Last year Suzuka was territory of one of the races in which the Verstappen - Red Bull duo proved to be really dominant. Also for this reason, as well as the very "complete" nature of the Suzuka track itself, it will be interesting to observe whether the steps forward made by their competitors in recent months have been enough to give them a run for their money...

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