The Formula 1 season-opener returns to Australia for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago.
Four teams ended last season vying for victory, but has any of them leapt ahead over the winter? We’ll get our first answers this weekend.
Piastri’s hopes at home
The Australian Grand Prix has been held as a round of the world championship 38 times, but it has never been won by a local driver. That could change this weekend, as Melburnian Oscar Piastri is expected to be among the front-runners.
He’s driving for the reigning constructors’ champions McLaren, who won the final race of last season, making this Australia’s best chance in years of greeting its first ever home winner. If he pulls it off, Piastri will also become the first driver to win the season-opening race on home ground since Nelson Piquet in 1986.
Doohan’s (almost) debut
There are two home drivers on the grid for the opening race, and although Jack Doohan hails from the Gold Coast some 1,300 kilometres away, he is sure to get just as warm a reception. His chances of winning are not as fancied, however, as Alpine finished a distant sixth in the championship last year.
This was due to be Doohan’s first race until Alpine decided to drop Esteban Ocon one round early at the end of last year. But despite that early start, Doohan’s future is already the subject of speculation, after Alpine consultant Flavio Briatore moved quickly to bring Franco Colapinto into the team and heaped praise on the driver who started nine rounds for Williams last season.
Doohan’s team principal Oliver Oakes hit out at the rumours surrounding Doohan, saying it was “not fair.” Jamie Campbell-Walter, part of Colapinto’s management team, recently took to social media to complain “haters who think they help Franco” were “doing him more harm than good.”
“Insults to the team, to Jack and sometimes to other supporters of Alpine. Franco and all of us who support him are fans of the whole team, Pierre [Gasly] and Jack. Conduct yourselves with passion but not abuse and arrogance. Franco’s time will come but not like this, you will achieve the opposite.”
Whether Doohan can produce the goods on track to make questions over his future an irrelevance remains to be seen. But as Ocon’s outstanding second place in Brazil last year showed, no result is good enough to save a driver if Briatore wants him out.
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Has anyone leapt ahead?
Pre-season testing indicated there is still little to separate the top four teams. Inevitably, all have been eager to manage expectations, above all Red Bull, who are putting it about that they are three-tenths of a second down on McLaren.
Last year’s cars were so closely matched that their performance swung noticeably from track to track. That is likely to be the case again this year, and the team which sets the pace on Melbourne’s parkland course may not be the ones to beat a week later around the very different track drivers will find in Shanghai.
The widely-held expectation is that in the fourth season of largely unchanged technical rules, teams will be even closer together. But if anyone has found something special over the winter, qualifying on Saturday is likely to be the first time we see it.
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New start for last winner
Although he set the fastest time in pre-season testing for the second year in a row, Carlos Sainz Jnr knows he is unlikely to repeat his victory in this race from 12 months ago. But exactly what kind of season he can expect following his move to Williams will begin to come clear at the track where he rebounded from his appendectomy in style in 2024.
Verstappen’s ban threat
Max Verstappen has picked up penalty points in four of the last five rounds. If he keeps that up he will be in trouble soon, as he is only four points away from an automatic ban.
He isn’t due to drop any penalty points from his superlicence until the halfway point in the season. Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko has advised him to “start being careful” but Verstappen seems to have no intention of doing so.
Another DRS fest?
Since the Australian Grand Prix promoters reconfigured the Albert Park track ahead of the 2022 race, and later added a fourth DRS zone, overtaking has become significantly easier. So much so that drivers know if a rival gets within range they are likely to lose position.
This was the situation which led to a controversial incident in the closing stages of last year’s race. George Russell crashed heavily while chasing Fernando Alonso, after the Aston Martin driver braked unusually early for a corner, accelerated, then braked again, leading to a sudden reduction in the gap between the two cars.
The stewards handed Alonso a stiff penalty which is likely to deter repeat offenders. But will F1 make Melbourne’s DRS zones less generous?
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FIA under pressure
Formula 1 drivers remain at odds with the FIA over its determination to fine anyone caught swearing. For now the governing body’s concern appears to focus on drivers’ official media duties only, not what they say in the cars.
However FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s approach to running the federation has been publicly challenged on the eve of the new season. David Richards, the chair of Motorsport UK, has warned they are prepared to take legal action after he and others were barred from a meeting for refusing to sign what they called a ‘gagging order’. Watch this one closely.
A new star?
Half-a-dozen drivers will start their first full F1 seasons this weekend. But one of them stands out for the speed with which he ascended to a potentially very competitive car.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, aged just 18, will make his debut for Mercedes this weekend in the seat formerly occupied by Lewis Hamilton. The comparisons are irresistible: Hamilton made an immediate impact on his debut at the same track 18 years ago.
Mercedes have hurried the karting prodigy through the junior racing categories, skipping Formula 3 and spending just one season in Formula 2. But he’s benefited from a huge amount of F1 testing. Now let’s see what he can do.
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Curtain-raiser back where it belongs
Five years since F1 last tried – unsuccessfully – to start its season in Melbourne, the championship is back for the curtain-raising race once more. Albert Park offers a superb setting for a race, and the early autumn sunlight provides a beautiful backdrop.
It may make inconvenient viewing hours for many F1 fans, but getting up early for a first glimpse of the cars being driven in anger is all part of the appeal, isn’t it?
Are you going to the Australian Grand Prix?
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Who do you think will be the team to beat in the Australian Grand Prix Grand Prix? Have your say below.
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