After the show down in Saudi Arabia, we made the journey down under for the 2024 Australian Grand Prix. Max Verstappen was on a 9 race win streak, about to equal his record for most wins in a row for the second time since Monza last year. There were question marks about whether Carlos Sainz would be able to participate in the weekend, given his appendectomy just 2 weeks prior. And the age-old question remained, would anyone be able to challenge Red Bull? As the clock struck midnight, heralding a new day, we rubbed the sleep from our eyes and switched on the TV. Here’s how the 2024 Australian Grand Prix weekend unfolded.
Mom says it’s my turn to race
Friday Practice 1 concluded with Alex Albon crashing into the barriers, leaving his Williams in tatters. The damage to the chassis was too extensive to repair on site, meaning the team would need to replace it completely with a spare. Lo and behold, Williams don’t have a spare chassis. I supposed that meant Alex Albon would sit out the remainder of the weekend. I supposed incorrectly. The headline read “Albon to take over Sargeant’s car for remainder of Australia GP weekend”. I laughed, thinking it was a ridiculous notion, before realizing the notification was coming from F1. What?
Williams team principle, James Vowels, was making a pragmatic decision based on their “best potential to score points”. His reasoning being that while Logan was improving and was continuously closer to Albon, he wasn’t ever ahead. So Alex, who scored 27 of the team’s 28 points last year, was given Logan’s chassis. While the rationale is sound, I disagreed with the decision.
There’s a human element to the sport, the cars don’t drive themselves. As extensively studied, an athlete’s performance is closely tied with their psychology. And this very public embarrassment is a huge blow to a driver’s confidence. This says, “I have no faith in you, so much so that I will not give you the chance to rise to the occasion”. It being so early in the season, it didn’t seem worth it to take this sort of gamble. This isn’t Monza, where the team is almost guaranteed points. Logan had participated in FP2 already, something Alex didn’t do, the worst that could’ve happened was him not scoring points. What was even the point of re-signing him? In hindsight it was all for nothing.
Hopefully this lights a fire in Logan. As an American, I’ve always had a soft spot for him and want to see him succeed.
Smooth Operator: The comeback kid!
Take a bow, smooth operator, you. Two weeks after an appendectomy, there was a question mark on whether Carlos Sainz would be able to race this weekend. To that he said “Race? What about win”. It was a legendary bounce back from the Spanish driver, not putting a foot wrong the entire weekend. He had the edge over his teammate all weekend long, and when Verstappen’s breaks caught fire in lap 2 he was ready to pounce. What followed was a smooth, controlled race to the checkered flag.
I cannot stress this enough, this man was getting surgery two weeks ago. He was still walking so gently.
The State of It All
On Sunday we were reminded that Red Bull are vincible and not just in Singapore. Apart from the mechanical failure, they didn’t seem so hooked up this weekend. That’s to say they weren’t perfect, as they usually are. Maybe Ferrari had the pace to fight them for real in the race, but we’ll never know. It could also just be coincidence, the reason Checo was unable to get close to the top 4 was apparently due to floor damage. But, I don’t know, I have a feeling this season will actually be closer than most think. On a side note, shout out to Red Bull for being so insanely reliable that the last mechanical DNF for Max Verstappen was Australia 2022.
I’m not saying I’m nostradamus, but I did say in the Saudi recap that I had a feeling about Ferrari and they went ahead and nabbed a 1-2. The team executed a perfect weekend, accumulating maximum points including the fastest lap. There’s a significance to them going after fastest laps, something they didn’t bother with in 2023. I suppose they didn’t have the car for it in 2023 given their horrible tire wear on race day, but it gives the impression of a team in a championship fight nonetheless. The standings, as it stands, doesn’t tell the full story but man is it fun to look at.
Fun Fact: before the last race in Saudi, Charles Leclerc’s last fastest lap was Australia 2022.
Mercedes is starting to look lost again. Before Australia they said we haven’t seen the car’s full potential due to suboptimal setups and things were going to improve. There were no signs of improvement in Australia, in fact they seemed to regress. They were nowhere in qualifying, and the race was no better. The weekend ending in a double DNF was just salt to the wound. The team will need to take a real good look in the mirror, their championship days seem so far away. As an expert vibe detector, I’m getting a general sense of dejection from the team.
As expected, Australia was happier hunting grounds for Mclaren. They had pace to keep up with Ferrari, and Lando Norris seemed to believe he could’ve gotten P2 from Leclerc had their strategy been better. The interesting thing about Mclaren is they are so track sensitive, whereas the Red Bull and Ferrari have a more well rounded package. It’ll be interesting to see if they can get ahead of Ferrari in their “good” tracks, like Suzuka for instance.
Aston Martin is a tough team to judge. If you’re going by their early 2023 performance, then they’re struggling. If you consider early 2023 an outlier, they aren’t doing too bad. They’re ahead of Alpine which have historically been their main competitor and even ahead of Mercedes which are now occupying the place of Mclaren. To me, P4 is the highest they could hope for. Let’s see how they do in the development race throughout the season.
I don’t have much to say about Alpine, or Baskin Robins as my sister likes to call them. They’re there and both cars finished the race. They also weren’t the last because Sauber exists. Ocon celebrating making Q2 was sobering. But at least that’s progress, I guess.
Spoiler alert, but Sauber’s earned jail time again. They have a decent race car, no worse than Alpine, Williams or even Haas. But the pit stop issues keep undoing all their hard work. Get it together guys, it’s embarrassing.
Yuki Tsunoda has been on absolute fire. Two consecutive Q3 appearances for RB and a P7 in the race puts the team in the coveted P6 in the constructors. The story on the other side of the garage is more worrying, with Ricciardo seemingly not getting to terms with the car. It’s early days and we’ll need to see how the car develops, but the team is in a good position for now.
This early season Haas is making a fan of me. The team are looking great, especially when their closest competitors are dropping the ball in such spectacular fashion – Williams with no spare Chassis, Sauber with 30 second + pitstops, Alpine. With how Ayao Komatsu was setting expectations so low, I thought we were going to see a no points season for Haas. They’ve come out the blocks swinging so far and I’m excited to see how development goes for them this year.
After the very public ordeal of a Chassis swap due to the team not having a spare, a tough week got even tougher for Williams. They come out of the weekend with no points despite 3 retirements from top teams, while their competitors got a good points haul. It also underlined the terrible decision to swap drivers, with Albon ruing his missed long run simulation. The happenings of this week characterize them as broke, unorganized, and unreasonably slanderous towards Microsoft Excel.
The Verdict
Race day for the 2024 Australian Grand Prix gave us an unexpected twist. Look, we don’t want mechanical failures dictating the outcomes of races, that’s no fun. However, in this particular instance it was a thrill. The commentators were losing their minds on the broadcast. The grandstands erupted in cheers as smoke billowed out the back of the number 1 car. We were in uncharted territories, we knew for a certainty that Max wouldn’t win the race. A race where the winner isn’t guaranteed? What a concept!
The buzz lasted for a little while. Lewis Hamilton’s engine sputtered and died on lap 17. Leclerc tried an alternate strategy and Mclaren had hopes of catching him with Norris. Perez got past Russell and Alonso, only to sit there for the remainder of the race. Russell hunted down Alonso, only to crash out in the final lap (that’s not where the saga ended but I don’t care to get into that for now). Sainz cruised to victory. The broadcast ignored anyone out of the top 4. And I genuinely don’t remember seeing a single overtake on screen.
All that to say, the racing has been lackluster so far this season. Last year was a Max washout, but the racing behind him was fantastic. Maybe this particular circuit doesn’t lend itself to much overtaking and the racing action will ramp up as we move on to Suzuka and Shanghai.
Final Verdict: I enjoyed the race, the surprise at the beginning made up for any lackluster racing that followed. That’s not to say I want to see Max out of races, it was just so unexpected. And isn’t that the fun of watching a sport, to be kept on the edge of your seat by the turning tides of competition. But this is how Formula One works; Red Bull nailed their car concept and it’s up to the other teams to close the gap and bring the challenge to them and Max Verstappen. The cost of the thrilling championship fights is the occasional wash out seasons.
So, upwards and onwards to the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka. Weather might play a big factor with rain forecasted at various points throughout the weekend. Will it be business as usual at the front with Max Verstappen coming back with a vengeance or might we be in for more surprises? If the Australian Grand Prix weekend taught us one thing it’s that nothing is guaranteed. Also, allegedly Red Bull is bringing some upgrades as are Ferrari. What effects might that have on the status quo?
