Recap of the Australian GP Race
By: Chris A
Quick recap:
Charles Leclerc ran a beautiful race securing P1. He put in fastest lap after fastest lap in succession towards the final stint, rubbing the Ferrari’s pace in everyone’s face.
Big yikes at Redbull as Max Verstappen gets another DNF due to car difficulties when again – he was in position to score a P2. That’s twice this year, two P2s turned into DNFs due to no fault of his own. 36 points left on the table has to hurt for the former World Champion. Champions fight back though and there are still a lot of races ahead. If Leclerc doesn’t make mistakes he can run away with the World Championship. Redbull will have to find some more pace and fix their reliability issues right away.
Sergio Perez came in P2 with a nice drive from the other Redbull, his car managed to not light itself on fire for the duration of the race. After Max’s car went up in flames, Sergio aka Checo radioed in asking what happened to Max’s car, concerned because he’s driving the same vehicle, and the response was essentially “Don’t worry aboooouuuut it”
The Mercedes managed to take P3 & P4, George Russell ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Great race for them considering their starting positions and the mediocre at best pace they had during qualifying. Russell had a luckily timed pit stop with a safety car that gave him the advantage over Lewis.
Possibly the greatest comeback story of the year so far, McLaren – Lando Norris with P5 & Daniel Ricciardo with P6. After an ass of a start to the year for McLaren they’ve been able to make massive improvements and find some real pace. Let’s see if it was just a fluke or they’ve solved their problems and will be able to maintain going forward. Happy to see the orange boys in the fight.
Disappointing race for Carlos Sainz, in the other Ferrari. Carlos was frustrated from qualifying and his race start and just full sent that shit early in the race. He launched off the track, got stuck in the gravel and that was the end of his weekend before even completing two laps. Hate to see it, but also hilarious.
In other news Alex Albon, Williams team, ran the entire race on the hard tire compound without pitting! And he was putting in pretty good lap times the whole way through. I think he was hoping for a cheap or free pit stop under a safety car towards the end of the race, but the opportunity never presented itself, so he had to pit in the second to last lap. Still managed to get himself P10 and secure 1 cheeky point for the mad lad. The tires compounds don’t seem as predictable this year. I don’t know if it’s the new tires, the new car changes or a combination.
Haas fell off the pace this weekend. Were their first two races a fluke? As the other teams improved, they can’t keep up? I don’t know, but it’s looking like they are on the path to being dog water again. I hope I’m wrong, but we’ll see. Wish them the best though.
Overall it was a 4 star race weekend, quite eventful, but the dominance from Leclerc took away a bit from the excitement.
Results below:
-Chris A
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