George Russell was the class of the field as he led Kimi Antonelli in a Mercedes 1-2 in Melbourne.
Despite 22 cars now being on the grid for this season, only 20 were able to start the race after Hulkenberg retired due to a communications issue in his Audi and Oscar Piastri crashed on the formation lap in front of his home fans.
It had been suggested that Ferrari would have a significant advantage on race starts over pre season, and such ideas were confirmed when Leclerc was able to leap ahead of both Mercedes cars and Hadjar to take the lead going into turn 1.
His teammate Hamilton also had a strong start, going up from 7th to 5th, while Lindblad in a Racing Bulls also had a mighty start, climbing up to 4th from 9th on the grid.
The expected order of things appeared to go back to normal once Russell overtook Leclerc for the lead of the race on lap 2, however the Ferrari driver would not let the lead slip so easily, which would see Russell and Leclerc duke it out over the opening 10 laps or so.
The battling was fierce enough that once Hamilton had overtaken Hadjar and Lindblad, he began to insert himself into the fight for the lead, almost thinking about making the cars go three wide into turn 3 on lap 9, but thought better of it.
This fight would be prematurely ended though after a Virtual Safety Car was brought out after an engine issue caused Isack Hadjar to retire, Mercedes opting to bring in both of their cars during that period, while Ferrari decided to keep Leclerc and Hamilton out, expecting that pitting so early would mean that Mercedes would need to do a two stop strategy.
This was a call that Hamilton wasn’t a fan of, expressing over the radio that the team should’ve brought at least one of them in, which would’ve been a more fruitful call as the Ferraris would be out of contention for the win throughout the rest of the race, with each Mercedes driver able to bring the car home on 40 lap old hard tyres.
Rumours circled before the weekend that both Aston Martin cars would be unable to even start the race due to vibrations being caused by their Honda power unit being a safety risk to the drivers, so despite retiring on lap 15, Alonso did more in this race than what was expected for the team at one point. Lance Stroll had continued even further, and despite going 15 laps down on the leaders due to an extended period in the pits, the Canadian would see the chequered flag.
Another Virtual Safety Car was brought out on lap 19 when Valtteri Bottas’ Cadillac ran out of power and was parked right by the pit entry. This meant that the pits were closed, and Ferrari were unable to rectify their error of not pitting under a caution.
Verstappen had been quietly chipping away at overtaking other cars to make the most of a recovery drive after a crash in qualifying caused him to start in 20th place, and was able to climb up into 6th place by lap 21.
Leclerc would come in for his stop on lap 26, while Hamilton would pit on lap 28, though not before Russell overtook him to retake the lead of the race on track.
Reigning world champion Lando Norris was beginning to be caught by Verstappen in the fight for 5th place during the middle portion of the race, and while Verstappen would begin to really challenge the Brit towards the end, no overtake was able to be made, allowing Norris to keep hold of a top 5 finish.
There had been a third, albeit brief, Virtual Safety Car period due to debris coming off of Sergio Perez’s Cadillac, but any damage wouldn’t stop him finishing in 12th place in the team’s first race in F1.
The race results meant that George Russell took the lead of the drivers championship for the first time in his career, while Mercedes are on top of the constructor’s championship for the first time since winning the title at the end of 2021.
Despite a late surge from Hamilton, Leclerc was able to join the two Mercedes drivers on the podium, while further down Lindblad was able to score an impressive 8th points on debut, while Bortoleto in 9th meant that Audi also scored points in their first F1 race.
The next race takes place at the Shanghai International Circuit in China, which will take place on Sunday, March 15, as F1 gears up for its first sprint weekend of the season.
