The Australian Grand Prix was marked by many doubts, uncertainties and some controversy for a confusing ending. The only certainty is the victory of Max Verstappen, never really in question except for a somewhat poor start that had brought him behind the two Mercedes cars.
Max Verstappen conceded only twelve laps of leadership to the George Russell – Lewis Hamilton duo before regaining the lead of the race, with an overtaking move against the seven-time world champion which clearly shows the current values in the field. An attack as simple as it is significant, because the British driver was unable to stem the difference in speed between the two cars, clearly increased by the use of the mobile wing.
However, the entry of the Safety Car following Alex Albon’s accident, as well as the consequent display of the red flag to clear the track of the gravel, changed the cards on the table. The interruption in fact allowed the Red Bull driver to stop in the pit lane and change the tires effectively gaining the position on George Russell, previously called to the pits by Mercedes to make a stop during the initial safety car period.
Carlos Sainz also paid the consequences: Ferrari had also followed the example of the Mercedes and called the Spaniard in the pits to mount a set of hard tires which could arrive at the checkered flag. A choice that, beyond the display of the red flag, made sense considering how the race evolved in terms of pace, with the drivers who almost never really showed the (true) potential of the cars except at moments.
In fact, the Australian Grand Prix is probably the most complex races to understand among those completed so far, not only for the various events of the race itself, but also for what revolved around the whole weekend. If in recent Grands Prix Red Bull had also become accustomed to gaps of almost half a minute, in Melbourne that gap didn’t go beyond eight seconds.
An almost “anomalous” situation, with a Mercedes better than expected in the low Australian temperatures ahead of an Aston Martin that wants to be a permanent presence in the leading group. The question arises: what place would Ferrari occupy in this bitter Sunday of racing? Undoubtedly, the situation of the Maranello team was already complicated on Saturday, on the one hand with that decision agreed with Charles Leclerc to carry out a single preparation lap, on the other with that error by the track engineer who had prompted Carlos Sainz to slow down and therefore let the tyres get cold.
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Without those errors, realistically the SF-23 cars would have had the opportunity to enter the fight for the first two rows with both of their drivers, changing the face of their race. An important element, because in the first two rounds we saw how starting up front helps make the difference when the margins are compact, an aspect that the Italian side paid for in Australia as well. The retirement of the Monegasque on the first lap due to a contact with Lance Stroll unfortunately deprived him of an important reference, which would have helped to provide an additional key to understanding the Ferrari weekend. However, even the Spaniard’s race alone still offers extremely interesting insights.
With only seven laps completed before the safety car entered the scene, the first stint didn’t offer much data, but it is precisely at this point that the race of the number 55 could have taken on another direction. This is why it is useful to take a few steps back to that first stint, in which several teams had decided to take advantage of the first neutralization to come back and mount the hard tyre. The idea was twofold: on the one hand, to dissociate the mandatory dual compound, on the other to replicate the same strategy already adopted last year by Alex Albon, or rather to complete almost the entire distance of the Grand Prix with a single set of tyres.
An idea which, given the low degradation guaranteed by the smooth asphalt of Melbourne and the certainty of not overheating one of the two axles considering the low temperatures, could actually have worked. When Ferrari recalled Carlos Sainz, the idea was to re-propose that same tactic, with a move that, in their vision, could have put the Spaniard in serious competition for the podium.
If the red flag hadn’t been displayed, the Ferrari driver would have had to move up the standings from the margins of the top ten, but he could also have counted on a net saving of around twenty seconds in terms of pit stop. Clearly that delta would gradually decrease as the laps went by, especially if the leaders increased their pace, but those few seconds could have helped. Without precise references it is difficult to imagine with absolute certainty how it would have ended, but being able to run in clean air after the first round of pit stops would have highlighted the limits and strengths of the SF-23, avoiding precisely those weaknesses which in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia had slowed it down, namely degradation and traffic.
However, with the neutralization decided by the race control, the race took on completely different colors, forcing Carlos Sainz to make a beautiful and complex comeback. Overtaking after overtaking, the number 55 was able to bring himself back up to fourth position, thanks also to some good maneuvers such as the lunge in turn 3 on Pierre Gasly. The most relevant aspect to mention is not the comeback itself, but rather that after fifteen laps of the race the Lewis Hamilton – Fernando Alonso duo had not yet opened a safety window on the midfield: when the Ferrari driver overtook the French driver of Alpine, the gap from his Aston Martin compatriot was around two seconds.
This is an indication of an aspect that, in reality, also recurred for the rest of the Grand Prix, namely the fact that the pace shown by most of the drivers on Sunday is more of a “mask” than what would actually have been possible. You can appreciate it simply by observing Max Verstappen’s race, which expressed the (true) potential of the single-seater by lapping times over a second lower than those of the competition only when it proved necessary to push to regain the leadership of the race.
The Dutchman controlled the race to his liking, pushing a few laps and navigating at a reduced pace in the remaining forty laps just to be sure of getting to the flag without the need to make further – albeit useless – stops.
Roughly the same happened, perhaps even more clearly, with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso: despite the Spaniard trying to slow down at times by trying to put pressure on the British, the seven-time world champion never faltered, remaining faithful to his own plan, i.e. to administer but without leaving room for rivals. Something that Mercedes from the pit wall also understood, as the team repeatedly suggested to its driver to concentrate on his race and on tire management without falling into the traps of the Spaniard.
This constant fear of not being able to get to the end and thus having to make a second stop affected all the certainties in terms of pace, turning into an extremely slow pace in itself. This can be seen by also observing the race of mid-group drivers such as Lando Norris and Nico Hulkenberg, who, before opening the doors to a good duel for eighth position, were only about ten seconds away from third place, demonstrating that the pace held was not great.
Precisely for this reason the Spaniard from the Prancing Horse was able to rejoin the Hamilton-Alonso duo so “quickly”, finding himself, moreover, with a contained gap. It is true that Carlos Sainz then managed to keep a small distance from his compatriot with a certain consistency, but when the two in front received the green light from the teams to push to the finish line, both Lewis and Fernando did not hesitate to lower the pace leaving the Ferrari man behind.
Although the Melbourne race probably didn’t even provide the Maranello team itself with the answers it was looking for, given that the drivers had worked above all in view of the race, on the other hand there are some elements worthy of note, in contrast with the previous events. If in Saudi Arabia Carlos Sainz had wanted to underline the difficulties of the SF-23 in dirty air, both for a question of sensitivity and overheating of the tyres, in Melbourne this did not occur despite the long period spent in the wake of a rival.
The problems of overheating the tires that had arisen in the first two rounds did not recur in Australia, not only due to the low asphalt temperatures which hovered around 25°C. One (swallow) race does not make spring, but the hope of the Prancing Horse is that, in small steps, it will be able to forcefully return to being the second fastest car in the world championship, constantly putting Mercedes and Aston Martin behind it.
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