Formula 1 is back! This year features six rookies and only one of them looks like they belong. Five of the six rookies crashed out this weekend. Only two rookies managed to finish the race. It’s going to be an interesting year with all this inexperience on the grid.
Qualification yielded a few pleasant surprises. The most notable surprise is for the first time in forever, Williams put both of the cars thru to qualification three. It appears Carlos Sainz made the right choice as Williams has vastly improved this off season. Carlos has put in twice as much test track time as the rest of the grid and it showed throughout the practice sessions this week. Though Williams lacks the pace of the front runners, they are quite pugnacious and will keep things interesting throughout the season.
The first race of the season occurred in the wet. True to form, on the formulation lap, rookie Isak Hadjar spun out into the wall. Then, during lap one, rookie Jack Doohan spun his Alpine into the wall. Finally, while under the initial yellow flag, Carlos Sainz had an energy spike in his battery, inadvertently spinning his rear wheels and he careened into the wall in a freak accident.
Moving the wrecks aside, the start of the race was quite interesting. The front row featured Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri while Max Verstappen and George Russell were on the second row. Racing on intermediate tires, the whole grid tentatively took off with the exception of Max Verstappen, who absolutely loves running in the rain. Pole sitter Lando Norris tip-toed away from the pack, as Verstappen stormed up next to Piastri pushing the track to three wide heading into turn one. Verstappen backed off and let Piastri thru as the rest of the grid followed, showering the track in rooster tails. Then, coming out of turn three, Verstappen squeezed by Piastri into second position. Meanwhile, further back Charles Leclerc raced from seventh position to fifth position….and then, Doohan crashed.
Racing resumed on lap seven. Piastri sped around Verstappen shortly after the green flag and the race remained uneventful until lap 34. Fernando Alonso hit a bad patch of track and spun out triggering the yellow flag once again. With the track drying out, teams took advantage of the yellow flag and changed their tires to slicks. Once again, the green flag swung but the rain was looming.
Finally, the rain started hitting the track around lap 44 and on lap 45 both McLarens flew through the gravel trap. Norris was able to get back on track. Piastri couldn’t hold his McLaren on track and ended up into the grass where it took him some time to get back on the track.
As the rain pounded the track, teams were bringing their cars in for a tire change. Max Verstappen and both Ferraris held out. Verstappen finally boxed to change tires during lap 47 leaving both Ferraris to lead the grid. The Ferraris and Red Bull were hoping the track would dry out quickly and their slicks would give them the advantage. Verstappen wisely pitted. Ferrari was forced to follow as both rookies Liam Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto wrecked shortly after Verstappen entered pit road.
Normal racing resumed during lap 52. Oscar Piastri was 13th. The last three laps of the race were eventful. With only six laps to go, Piastri managed to finish in ninth position. Verstappen pulled within half a second of Norris during the last three laps allowing him to engage DRS. Norris’s McLaren was too powerful. More importantly, Norris’s skill was just enough to hold off the flying Dutchman.
At the moment, everyone is chasing McLaren. They won the constructors championship last season. This season they have issued a strong debut. But for Piastri’s unfortunate wild ride, McLaren would have had a one two finish. At one point in the race, Piastri was a couple of seconds behind Norris, and Verstappen was sixteen seconds behind Piastri. This was in the wet. McLaren has a strong car to start the season.
Kimi Antonelli looks to be the only rookie who has shown he belongs as he finished in fifth position. The only other rookie to finish was Ollie Bearman who crashed twice during practice sessions this week.
So long as there is no rain, next week will hopefully give us a better barometer on the strength of the teams this year. Thus far McLaren is holding serve, Williams is surprising and Ferrari is disappointing.
