“Don’t put me under pressure”

The Australian Grand Prix served up surprises after back-to-back Red Bull one-twos in the opening races of 2024. An early retirement for Max Verstappen opened the door for the team’s rivals to take a rare victory.

Ferrari took full advantage, beating McLaren to secure their first win since Singapore last year as well as the team’s first one-two in two seasons.

They did this by outmanoeuvring McLaren to get Charles Leclerc ahead of Lando Norris. But when he began to close on his race leading team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr, Ferrari were quick to tell their drivers to hold position.

Further back, the disruption to the race caused by Lewis Hamilton’s retirement presented an opportunity to other teams. Among them were Haas, who for the second race in a row used Kevin Magnussen to help his team mate score points.

Early trouble

Verstappen secured his third consecutive pole of the season in Saturday’s qualifying session, which put him in with a strong chance of a hat trick of victories from the start of the season. However, from the moment the lights went out, he struggled with an stuck right-rear brake that slowly overheated to a critical point, which put him out of his first grand prix for exactly two years.

With Verstappen out of the race, Sainz led from Lando Norris, Leclerc and Oscar Piastri. Leclerc struggled to get by the McLaren and join his team mate up front, so Ferrari tried to leap him ahead of the McLaren by pitting him earlier.

Sauber had struggled with malfunctioning pit equipment through the first two rounds, leading to pit problems for Valtteri Bottas in Bahrain and his team mate Zhou Guanyu in Jeddah. In Melbourne, both drivers suffered more problems in the pits.

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Alonso’s good timing

After Verstappen’s retirement, Piastri followed Leclerc into the pits. McLaren brought in team mate Norris, the team warned Piastri that he might meet Norris coming out of the pit lane, but Piastri was clear.

Sainz led up the end of lap 16, where he came in for his first stop. Fernando Alonso was the only driver in the top five not to have pitted as Sainz emerged right in front of him. But then as he overtook the Ferrari on cold tyres, the field were forced to slow due to Lewis Hamilton’s sudden problem with his Mercedes.

McLaren were afraid the VSC would allow Alonso to keep ahead of Norris when he pitted. However, the Aston Martin emerged just behind the two McLarens in fifth, ahead of George Russell.

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Team orders

Piastri was ahead of his team mate in third, on course for a podium in his home grand prix. However, Norris behind had fresher tyres and pace that was quicker than the Ferraris ahead. So there was little argument when McLaren asked Piastri to step aside for his team mate.

Ferrari were looking comfortable out front. Leclerc was just outside of DRS range of his leading team mate, but he got the call not to push to challenge Sainz ahead.

Down in 11th, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was just ahead of team mate Nico Hulkenberg. The earlier VSC allowed Hulkenberg to pit for mediums, which meant he was on newer, faster tyres than his team mate. For the second race in a row, Magnussen played the team game and would ultimately be rewarded by a double points finish by the end of the grand prix.

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Ferrari plays it safe

Leclerc pitted first out of the two Ferraris again the second time around. Sainz had a moment of concern that his team mate could manage to jump ahead of him, but he was reassured by the team that he had nothing to worry about.

Norris was around three seconds behind Leclerc and trying whatever he could to catch up to the two scarlet cars. But he had to admit that at this race, he just did not have the same performance as the Scuderia.

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Celebrations and commiserations

The end of the grand prix was marred by the penultimate-lap crash of George Russell who lost control of his car at turn six in contentious circumstances chasing Alonso. The accident required all race engineers to respond quickly to the danger and a full breakdown of the reactions to the accident can be found here and Alonso’s messages prior to and after Russell’s shunt are here.

But as it was clear that Russell was safe and well, Ferrari, and Sainz, celebrated a rare and memorable grand prix victory – just two weeks after the driver had undergone emergency surgery during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend for appendicitis.

Ferrari’s win ended a nine-race winning streak for Red Bull and Verstappen – one of the longest in Formula 1 history immediately following their last record-breaking winning streak. But while Sergio Perez came home in fifth place, it would later turn out that a discarded tear-off had caught underneath his car, affecting the efficiency of his floor.

Team principal Christian Horner offered condolences to his sole remaining driver, suggesting Red Bull’s result had reflected Perez’s car more than his own performance.

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2024 Australian Grand Prix

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