For the second time, it’s Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz who is breaking Max Verstappen’s streak of Formula 1 victories. The Spaniard secured the race win in the Australian Grand Prix at the 5.278-kilometre Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne with a comfortable margin over his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc and in full control of the race after the Dutchman’s retirement early in the race due to brake disk problems. The McLaren cars of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri posed a threat to Charles Leclerc in the battle for second place, but couldn’t hope to fight for the victory. The SF-24 is a far cry from its predecessor; it can use the tires better than others, and there’s no Max Verstappen-like pace hindered in every way by a brake-by-wire issue, yet Carlos Sainz produced a high-level pace because he had the right settings to deal with graining.
Could Red Bull have paid a bit for the growing internal pressure?
Reliability issues are always the result of imperfect attention to detail. A few days ago, an experienced man like Helmut Marko pointed out that Red Bull needs to return to calm after the recent scandal that has put Christian Horner squarely at the forefront of Formula 1 and beyond. Winning helps maintain an armed peace, but in Melbourne, Ferrari put real pressure from the first lap on Friday for the first time. This forced their rivals to seek a different path to secure the front row at all costs, even with Sergio Perez.
The Mexican’s grid penalty left Ferrari with a more open window.
The Australian Grand Prix showed that, notwithstanding Max Verstappen’s retirement, on layouts that require a good front end, the SF-24 performs very well. At the same time, the Italian simulation team continues to prepare the car perfectly. Some commented in the paddock that luckily for Ferrari’s rivals, it was not a Sprint weekend, because no one would have caught the Maranello team. In summary, the more the SF-24 runs in the corners, the better it works in the race because it now uses less tire than others. On the other hand, even straight-line efficiency wasn’t penalizing despite the choice of downforce to protect pace in the last sector, the slowest one. Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were only losing 3 or 4 kilometers per hour to Red Bull. If choice made by the Maranello technicians at the Jeddah circuit was a bit conservative, in Australia it was simply the most correct and the best option.
Carlos Sainz was in bed one week ago, but on Sunday he was euphoric. Life is indeed sometimes incredible. The Spaniard was confident he could win this race, as he did well at the Albert Park circuit last year too, while at the same time pointing out that this SF-24 is a completely different car. In fact, Carlos Sainz did what he wanted on Sunday. He was able to widen the gap easily on Lando Norris’s McLaren and extend the stint on the C4 compound. At that point, he just had to count the laps and manage his pace, the only opponent could be Charles Leclerc, who, from the qualifying session, wasn’t comfortable enough to worry him. The Monegasque driver admitted that his Maranello teammate did a better job than him this weekend, but was also happy that Ferrari overall got the maximum points in Australia, which is what matters most. The Monegasque was honest and acknowledged Carlos Sainz’s great work; nevertheless, he could smile looking at the standings. With the fastest lap, he overtook Sergio Perez by one point ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix.
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Sergio Perez’s RB20 was never in contention; furthermore, there was a loss of around 20 points of downforce generated by some floor damage from lap 27, so his recovery was a bit limited in the second part of the race. However, his pace was far off, which was largely insufficient to reclaim the podium, let alone the fight for the race victory.
Scuderia Ferrari returns to Maranello with the total jackpot of 44 points available, while Max Verstappen stops after 44 races. McLaren was a solid second force, just two tenths behind Carlos Sainz, while Mercedes is in the worst moment of the Formula 1 hybrid era: the German side suffered as yet unidentified issue with Lewis Hamilton’s power unit and George Russell didn’t finish after an alarming level of performance. The Englishman was 50 seconds behind Ferrari at the time of his incident with Fernando Alonso.
The next round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship is Suzuka, just a few months after Max Verstappen’s overwhelming victory, an opportunity for Scuderia Ferrari to check the progress seen at the Melbourne circuit. The Italian side intends to push on developments; if all goes well next week in Japan, they will bring forward a small part of the first aerodynamic upgrade.
