Leclerc is leveling up. Reliability demons linger for RBR. McLaren might be back.
Recap: 2022 Australian Grand Prix
Charles Leclerc turned in a grand slam weekend for Ferrari — pole position + win the race + lead every lap + fastest lap of the race — and stretched his lead in the driver’s standings to 34 points.
Max Verstappen made a nice challenge after a yellow flag restart, but Charles was basically racing himself all weekend otherwise.
Charles finished with the ultimate flex by turning in the fastest lap (by an impressive .7 seconds) on his final lap, pushing himself despite holding a 20 second lead.
Charles is now the definitive favorite for the title and only a few more wins from quickly making the driver’s championship less interesting.
Carlos Sainz suffered a series of unfortunate events this weekend.
In his control: he consistently remains few tenths behind his teammate
Out of his control: a yellow flag interrupted a critical hotlap for Carlos in Q3 and he couldn’t recover in time, forcing him to start in P9.
Carlos started on hard tyres in a strategy effort to drive a long first stint and gain track position, but the decision backfired when he was quickly passed by multiple cars at the start. Carlos eventually spun into the gravel trying to push too hard before his tyres warmed up and retired. Still in the middle of contract negotiations, Carlos is likely scrambling for solutions before Imola.
Sergio Perez finished P2 for his first podium of the season and salvaged an otherwise difficult weekend for Red Bull as Max Verstappen was forced to retire once again on Lap 38.
Checo was on it all day and produced a few smooth overtakes, including this outside move on George Russell. He looks comfortable in his car and could easily jump to second in the standings with another good week.
Max is battling reliability problems more than any other driver at this point. Red Bull once again had the second fastest car on the grid this weekend and Max was looking primed to finish second, but now instead of 18 points he goes home with zero.
The toughest wound of this weekend for Red Bull? Mercedes, with all their pace problems and porpoising, is now ahead of RBR in the constructors standings.
All of this said, take it slow counting Red Bull out. Max is still pushing for wins in a slightly slower car, so the tables could turn quickly if Red Bull can make strides with reliability, and even more quickly if they make improvements with pace.
Mercedes still doesn’t look quite like Mercedes, but they are sitting pretty at second in the constructors after making some improvements to pace and a great P3/P4 race finish from George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
George qualified P6 and turned in a great race on Sunday to push himself up to second in the driver’s standings.
While not technically his first podium, this is George’s first time actually finishing a race in the top three.
Lewis Hamilton qualified ahead of Russell, had a great start, and was looking primed for a podium before getting screwed once again by the timing of a yellow flag.
Toto Wolff can enjoy his pumpernickel toast Monday morning as he stares at Mercedes ahead of Red Bull in the standings for at least one week.
McLaren stormed back into the 2022 constructor’s race with a double points weekend.
Things looked different for the papaya: both drivers had consistent pace all weekend, made Q3, then turned in solid races finishing P5/P6.
Adding 18 points vaults them to fourth in the constructors, which is huge considering where they were two weeks ago.
Alpine turned in another solid but ultimately disappointing weekend.
Alonso had the pace to compete for pole and even turned in a purple first sector in Q3 before a hydraulics issue forced him to retire.
Esteban Ocon lacked Alonso’s pace but ran a solid race and scored a few points in P7.
Alexander Albon scored his first points for Williams and Williams first of the season behind a unique strategy.
Albon started the race on hard tyres and rode them all the way to the penultimate lap.
He built up a big enough gap to pit for tyres on the final lap (you are required to at least once during the race) and still finish ahead of Zhou Guanyu for P10.
Other notes:
Valtteri Bottas finished P8 and continues to impress in the midfield.
Pierre Gasly picked up a few points in P9 and avoided the RBPT reliability problems for today.
Lance Stroll was a problem pretty much all weekend. He caused a crash with Nicolas Latifi in Qualifying, then stayed on the stewards radar for most of race day receiving a penalty for weaving on the straight and drawing ire for running Bottas off the track at one point.
full results
constructor standings
No idea how albon didn't get DOTD