Charles Leclerc lead from start to finish to become the first Ferrari driver to win the Australian Grand Prix since 2018 on Sunday. PHOTO: Ferrari

BRENDAN LINES APRIL 10, 2022

FERRARI painted Melbourne red when Charles Leclerc led from start to finish winning the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park on Sunday.

The Monegasque was class-of-the-field, becoming the first Ferrari driver since Sebastian Vettel in 2018 to win the race, extending his world championship lead to 34 points.

A record-breaking 419,114 fans flocked over the four days, eclipsing the previous record of 401,000 set at Melbourne’s first event in 1996.

Leclerc withstood sustained pressure from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen while having the advantage of his lead cut back by two safety cars.

But the late afternoon sun shone on the 24-year-old’s race when Verstappen’s race abruptly ended — the second Red Bull car to retire from power-unit failure in three races — on Lap 39.

Breezing to a 20-second lead over Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez, Leclerc saluted the flag with the fastest lap of the race in his pocket.

Conversely, Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz capped off a disastrous weekend by spinning off on the exit of the high-speed chicane  at Turn 9-10 on Lap 3, triggering the first safety car of the race.

After the race restart on Lap 6, Verstappen was then troubled by a graining front right-medium tyre on Lap 12, five laps earlier than the tyre’s predicted lifespan.

Ferrari played tactics pushing Verstappen into a corner to stay out on track rather than pit and lose track position, on Lap 19 Red Bull blinked first to go onto the hard tyre.

It was a day of silver service for the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, after a weekend dogged by tyre temperature issues.

Russell benefited from a pit stop under the second safety car — triggered by Sebastian Vettel’s exit from the race on Lap 24 — to gain track position over Hamilton and snaring an unlikely podium finish, a first for Russell with the team.

Surprisingly, Russell’s podium and Hamilton’s P4 means Mercedes leave Albert Park as the leader of the constructors championship. 

Their race pace was on song leapfrogging ahead of Lando Norris in P4 at the start and kept a resurgent Fernando Alonso playing a long game on the harder tyre behind them.

Despite losing ground at the start, both the McLaren’s of Lando Norris and hometown hero Daniel Ricciardo recovered to P5 and P6 respectively, consolidating the team’s first double-points finish for the season.

After lurching to disappointing results in practice sessions Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and George Russell completed a turnaround qualifying P5 and P6 for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix. PHOTO: Mercedesamgf1

BRENDAN LINES APRIL 10, 2022

A SHOCK podium would be nothing short of a miracle to save Mercedes’ season on Sunday at Albert Park, well off its usual class-of-the-field performance, the team has been taming a hard-to-handle ‘rattlesnake’ car Lewis Hamilton says.

Both Hamilton and Russell have been quite vocal since Bahrain on the W13’s lack of performance.

Hamilton’s frustrations boiled over on Friday claiming  “nothing” was working despite the team’s best efforts to improve the underperforming W13.

Porpoising and tyre temperature compounding a deficient power unit added up to a series of headaches on Friday night back at the team’s base in Brackley.

But Saturday’s Q3 effort, coming off a long run of two out-laps while towing teammate George Russell, the seven-time world champion and part-time snake charmer almost put the car on the second row of the grid.

“It’s like a rattlesnake!,” Hamilton said.

“If the ride height is going high/low, high/low, when you turn in you never know which position you’ll catch it in and the car could oversteer or understeer depending where you catch it, so driving it is a real challenge.”

Team principal Toto Wolff said the team had overperformed when Hamilton and Russell eventually finished in P5 and P6 respectively – helped partially by Fernando Alonso’s crashing out in Q3.

But just what will Hamilton and Russell need to do to pull off an unlikely podium finish at Albert Park? Wolff suggests tyres again will be a factor.

“Protecting the tyres will be important, and nobody has had the opportunity to gather much data after the red flag yesterday in FP2,” Wolff said.

“So it will be another trip into the unknown – and hopefully we have made the right choices to deliver our performance across the full race distance.” 

While the gaps to Red Bull and Ferrari of a are sizeable concern, Mercedes hopes if it can fall on the good side of tyre degradation its chances could be realistic. 

Slightly helped by Alonso and Carlos Sainz’s misfortunes on Saturday George Russell believed “there’s no reason why we can’t finish ahead of the McLaren tomorrow, we have to try and also keep Sainz and Alonso behind”.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took his second pole position for 2022 and the team’s first in 15 years at Albert Park on Saturday. PHOTO: Ferrari

BRENDAN LINES APRIL 9, 2022

FERRARI ended a 15-year drought of pole positions at Albert Park when Charles Leclerc thwarted a challenge from Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in the dying seconds of qualifying on Saturday.

After the restart of a red-flagged Q3, Leclerc kept everyone guessing staying in the garage right until the final moments, the Monegasque stitched together a brilliant lap with a blistering first sector on his final run securing pole over Verstappen.

Q1

Earlier in Q1, Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz laid down the early challenge in Q1, the Ferrari drivers first runs setting a hot pace into the low one-minute 19s.

Both Red Bulls were around the mark with both the cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez firing in a pair of sub-one minute 19 laps.

McLaren carried over its FP3 pace, while Valterri Bottas was in the conversation with his first run enough for P5, just .772s off the Ferrari’s pace.

Lewis Hamilton needed two out-laps to generate enough heat in the troublesome Mercedes’ tyres in the cooler conditions, the Brit managed to snatch P6 in the dying minutes of Q1.

Aston Martin rushed to get Lance Stroll’s AMR22 repaired in time only to have its miserable weekend compounded when Nicholas Latifi collected the Canadian on his way through Turn 8 — leaving Stroll unable to set a time.

The subsequent red flag with two minutes left in the session, rescued Sebastian Vettel’s session, affording Aston Martin to at least give one car a chance to get out of the elimination zone of Q1.

After a five-minute delay, the session restarted with cars at the ready for a dash to the line to make the two-minute cut-off time to post one more flying lap.

Sadly, Vettel was unable to escape the bottom five, while Alex Albon’s P15 was soured — already  attracting a three-place grid penalty from the previous race in Saudi Arabia —  when his Williams came to a halt on his in-lap.

Q2

Fernando Alonso hustled, splitting the Red Bulls edging ahead of Perez with his opening lap of Q2 and just +.204s off Verstappen’s fastest time.

George Russell’s unruly W13 went straight on at turn 11, the Brit struggling to hold on under brakes with a car bereft of any meaningful grip.

Sergio Perez’s opening lap in Q2 jumped Verstappen by -0.271s, pushing Alonso back to P3.

Ferrari fell short chasing down Perez’s time in the closing minutes, Sainz’s best time was just +.129s off the Red Bull.

The low afternoon sun played havoc, when drivers called for darker visors, Max Verstappen calling a ‘mayday’ over the radio.

Q3

Verstappen’s overshooting of Turn 13 left valuable lap time on the table, allowing Perez to get the upper hand after the first runs of Q3.

Alonso’s dream purple-sector Q3 run came to a nightmarish end losing his Alpine’s brake hydraulics on the entry to Turn 11.

The Spainiard’s misfortune spelt an end to fellow countryman Sainz’s first run when the session was red-flagged with just under seven minutes to go, however Leclerc slipped through just before the stoppage into provisional pole.

It is Leclerc’s second pole position for the season and his first in Australia.

The last time a Ferrari driver won at Albert Park was Sebastian Vettel in 2018.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was fastest in FP3 of the Australian Grand Prix on Saturday. PHOTO: McLaren

BRENDAN LINES APRIL 9, 2022

LANDO Norris has zeroed-in on McLaren’s Q3 aspirations finishing fastest ahead of Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez in FP3 on Saturday.

The faster flowing Albert Park circuit suited McLaren’s set up, but it spent most of the session still hunting for speed in medium-speed corners.

Norris and teammate Daniel Ricciardo (P6) came out for their first soft tyre run with 11-minutes to go, making it top ten finishes in every session across the weekend so far.

It was more problems for Aston Martin with Vettel’s car still needing work after yesterday’s engine failure. But the teams luck went from bad to worse, when Sebastian Vettel (P19) going off into the wall at the Turn 9-10  high-speed chicane red-flagging the session for the first time, 21 minutes in.

The session was then finally red-flagged, prematurely ending the session, when Lance Stroll (P20) hit the wall at Turn 11, adding to Aston Martin’s busy afternoon to repair  both cars for the afternoon’s qualifying session. 

Fernanado Alonso (P4) entered the conversation for a Q3 appearance,  setting the early marker, the first driver to dip into the one-minute 19s, but the Alpine driver soon was surpassed by Perez on a soft-tyre run posting a 1:19.720.

Alonso remonstated going -0.060s quicker again, enough to have the French team’s garage up and about, just before the session was red-flagged by Vettel’s incident.

Lewis Hamilton continued to struggle with finding the grip going off at Turn 3  and after the restart George Russell was next to go off at Turn 4. 

Hamilton later managed to edge into the top ten but still some nine-tenths off the pace in the final sector.

After the restart, Verstappen was unable to improve on (P7) after the session restarted, the Dutchman made an error on his push lap at the final turn, the RB16 still struggling for rear-end grip in the slower corners.

He then backed out of a late soft-tyre run after a nervous moment through Turn 6, another untidy entry into Turn 1 frustrated the world champion enough to abort another run.

Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas finished P9, keeping a perfect record of top ten finishes across the weekend so far intact, while Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda rounded-out the top ten.

Qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix begins at 4pm on Saturday.

FULL RESULTS

1	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:19.117	Split	12 Laps
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	1:19.249	+0.132s	15
3	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	1:19.265	+0.148s	17
4	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	1:19.275	+0.158s	15
5	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	1:19.419	+0.302s	17
6	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:19.693	+0.576s	14
7	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	1:19.809	+0.692s	16
8	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:19.896	+0.779s	13
9	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:20.008	+0.891s	17
10	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	1:20.071	+0.954s	12
11	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	1:20.096	+0.979s	16
12	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	1:20.133	+1.016s	14
13	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	1:20.205	+1.088s	14
14	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	1:20.692	+1.575s	17
15	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:20.836	+1.719s	16
16	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:20.958	+1.841s	16
17	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	1:21.025	+1.908s	14
18	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:21.050	+1.933s	14
19	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	1:21.636	+2.519s	11
20	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES			5

Over 1.2 seconds off the pace made it a day to forget for Mercedes at Albert Park on Friday. PHOTO: Mercedes Benz group media

BRENDAN LINES APRIL 9, 2022

MERCEDES’ midfield woes have hit another hurdle with tyre temperature issues making yesterday’s practice sessions at Albert Park a day to forget for the reigning constructors champions.

So far, the underpowered W13 has been unable to live up to expectations, Lewis Hamilton’s P7 in FP2 the team’s best result yesterday — however +1.2 s off the pace of the fastest times set by the Ferrari’s.

Aside from its deficient power unit, tyre temperature has caused another headache for both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.

Lewis Hamilton said it was a difficult day where the car simply would not improve.

“It’s frustrating because you’re pushing and pushing, and even when you pull off a good lap, you look at the times and we’re over a second down.”

For George Russell, his day improved marginally from P12 in FP1 to P11 in FP2, however tyres and underlying porpoising issues laid bare the car’s limitations.

“The car actually felt alright, we’re porpoising pretty bad into turn nine but I think that’s something we just have to deal with for the time being,” Russell said.

“We believe how we set the car up was the fastest way around the track but maybe it’s not.” 

Russell’s seemingly sense of  dumbfoundedness towards the car’s current setup sparked a frantic search for answers overnight back at the team’s Brackley base, Mercedes engineering director Andrew Shovlin describes.

“We already have some ideas of which direction we can go with the setup,” Shovlin said.

“We’re in a vicious circle where the drivers don’t have the confidence to carry the speed through the faster corners, and it’s that speed that will generate the temperature we desperately need.

“We were clearly more competitive in the first session than in the cooler conditions of the afternoon session, and the data we’re seeing from the car is supporting the fact we’re just not hot enough.”

FP3 of the Australian Grand prix begins at 1pm on Saturday.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fastest in FP2 at the Australian Grand Prix on Friday. PHOTO: Ferrari

BRENDAN LINES APRIL 8, 2022

CHARLES Leclerc topped the timesheets in FP2, securing consecutive fastest finishes for Ferrari, stamping the Scuderia’s authority on both Friday’s practice sessions.

As smatterings of light rain swept across Albert Park, Carlos Sainz was first to post sub-one-minute 19 times on medium and soft tyres, then Charles Leclerc made his run setting a new fastest lap record of 1:18.978s

Rear-end issues plagued Red Bull in the early stages as both the cars of Max Verstappen (P2)  and Sergio Perez (P5) returned to the garages after their first runs.

Verstappen fired in a sub-one-minute 19 lap in response to Ferrari’s challenge, and on a soft tyre run towards the end of the session the reigning world champion split the Ferrari’s.

McLaren’s signs of improvement carried over from FP1, Lando Norris (P8) and Daniel Ricciardo (P10) were again on the pace posting consecutive top-ten placings across both sessions.. 

Alpine’s Fernando Alonso was the big improver, his fastest lap was +0.559 off Leclerc’s time and  was enough to seal P4, contrasting with his FP1 performance finishing P9. 

Mercedes’ woes continued, trailing more than +1.2s off the fastest time, making it successive finishes for Lewis Hamilton (P13) and George Russell (P11) outside of the top ten in both Friday’s sessions.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was unable to post a time, his AMR22 needing an engine replacement after the earlier session.

FP3 for the Australian Grand Prix begins at 1pm local time, on Saturday.

FULL RESULTS

1	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	1:18.978	Split	27 Laps
2	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	1:19.223	+0.245s	22
3	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	1:19.376	+0.398s	27
4	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	1:19.537	+0.559s	22
5	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	1:19.658	+0.680s	20
6	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	1:19.842	+0.864s	25
7	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:20.055	+1.077s	25
8	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:20.100	+1.122s	24
9	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	1:20.142	+1.164s	27
10	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:20.203	+1.225s	24
11	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	1:20.212	+1.234s	25
12	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	1:20.424	+1.446s	30
13	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:20.521	+1.543s	23
14	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	1:20.611	+1.633s	28
15	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:21.063	+2.085s	23
16	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	1:21.191	+2.213s	23
17	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:21.912	+2.934s	28
18	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	1:21.974	+2.996s	22
19	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:22.307	+3.329s	24

BRENDAN LINES APRIL 8, 2022

PREVIOUS lap records were obliterated by over four seconds seconds when Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was fastest in FP1 at Albert Park on Friday.

The throaty roar of the latest breed of turbo-hybrid Formula 1 cars turned a wheel in anger on the new-and-improved track layout after a three-year hiatus.

The previous record of Michael Shumacher (1:24.125) set in 2004, was surpassed when Verstappen laid down an early marker with a 1:20.857s in his soft-tyre shod Red Bull, trading fastest-lap blows with world title-rival,  Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

The session was then red-flagged when debris littered the circuit from  Sergio Perez’s Red Bull 13 minutes in.

The jettison bits of the RB16 was unable to hamper Perez’s run, he would later finish the session in P3 +0.593 off Sainz’s time.

After the re-start, the sister Ferrari of Carlos Sainz then jumped the world-title combatants with 20 minutes to go in the session putting three-hundreds back to the Red Bull, Sainz then eventually set the best time of the session half-a second clear of his teammate.

It was promising for McLaren with Lando Norris opening the session with a long run and occupying P4 for most of the session, then eventually finishing. P5

While hometown hero Daniel Ricciardo was thereabouts with Norris putting in some solid runs, his fastest run on the soft tyres was enough for P8.

Sebastian Vettel’s engine failure on his first weekend back for the season with Aston Martin came to a standstill along Lakeside drive straight, bringing  out the second red-flag of the session.

FP2 of the Australian Grand Prix begins at 4.00pm local time on Friday.

FULL RESULTS

1	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	1:19.806	SPLIT
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	1:20.377	+0.571s	21 LAPS
3	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	1:20.399	+0.593s	20
4	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	1:20.626	+0.820s	22
5	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:20.878	+1.072s	22
6	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	1:21.004	+1.198s	27
7	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:21.027	+1.221s	26
8	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:21.155	+1.349s	23
9	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	1:21.229	+1.423s	21
10	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:21.247	+1.441s	23
11	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	1:21.289	+1.483s	26
12	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	1:21.457	+1.651s	26
13	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	1:21.661	+1.855s	18
14	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	1:21.701	+1.895s	26
15	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:21.821	+2.015s	21
16	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	1:21.869	+2.063s	24
17	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:22.754	+2.948s	25
18	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	1:23.186	+3.380s	18
19	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:23.924	+4.118s	25
20	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	1:24.349	+4.543s	15

Valtteri Bottas was the winner of the 2019 Australian Grand Prix and returns to Albert Park after a Formula 1’s three-year hiatus. PHOTO: Florent Gooden/DPPI

BRENDAN LINES APRIL 8, 2022

ALFA Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas remains the reigning king of Albert Park 1,120 days after his 2019 victory when Formula makes its return to Melbourne this weekend.

Back then, the former Mercedes driver made another defiant bid to convince the team he was the one-to-back for the 2019 world title over teammate Lewis Hamilton in the best possible way.

But in 2021, the Finn arrives with a new team and his career on a much different trajectory with a new new goals, he told grandprixnet.com.

“It’s a different mindset, but I’m used to it, I’ve completely had to reset my goals and expectations coming into this year,” Bottas said.

“Obviously, yes, I’d like to fight for the win, but as a team that’s where we’re at at the moment. 

“For me that’s the motivation is to see progress and improvements and enjoy the results and if we’re able to maximise everything on a weekend that’s motivation (in) itself.”

Out-qualifying his Mercedes-replacement George Russell in the season opener in Bahrain was a brilliant start, the team had never been close, yet alone been ahead of the all-conquering Mercedes in the turbo-hybrid era on outright pace.

Bottas said the team could still hold its head high despite a DNF in the second race at Jeddah, even though “the main issue we have is the reliability”.

Returning to his happy hunting ground at Albert Park this week, it’s a case of what was old is new again with changes to the track layout completed over the race’s three-year hiatus.

New cars, with aerodynamic changes for better overtaking and Albert Park the first track to feature four DRS zones, Bottas said he expects this weekend’s race to be won on tactics.

“I think it should be a good  race to watch. I’m pretty sure there’s more wheel-to-wheel action from the previous races here,” Bottas said. 

“For me the changes made to the track are really positive, it makes it a bit faster, a bit (more) flowing to the track and a bit more overtaking opportunities. 

“I think it’s going to make the race, tactically, quite interesting when fighting with other drivers, you will have to make sure you will have the upper hand when it comes to the overtake itself. 

Especially if it’s a battle toward the end of the race you’ll have to time things right, so it just makes it different in a way.”

Formula 1 returns when  FP1 begins at 1pm on Friday.