FORMULA 1 LOUIS VUITTON AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2025 - Melbourne.....Race..... ▄▀▄▀▄▀ SPOILERS ▄▀▄▀▄▀

Hands down one of the most entertaining races in a long time.

Rain makes it always more interesting, no doubt.

Kudos to Norris and Albon.

Black eye to the clown crew on the Ferrari pitwall.

 

Next time, I need more coffee before early morning threads lol

 

Looks like F1 is just paying minimum wage these days.....haven't seen this many fresh teens since my last visit to McDonalds

 

I was surprised to see all these new names as I watched qualifying. Well, the rain distinguished the men from the boys.

I'm impressed with Antonelli. The rest, meh.

 

Bearman had a decent race but everything leading up to it was a shambles

the rest of them are just filling seats.

 

HAM had a mini spin right in front of the pit entrance. It was so obvious right then and there to come in!

 

One more lap Max would have taken Norris. First race of the season. No purpose to taking too many risks. Bring home the points...

 

Max only got so close because of the many SC restarts. Under normal conditions Norris would have sailed off into the distance, which is what I expect from the rest of the season.

The .4 sec gap from qualifying speaks volumes. That comes out to a 30 second gap over the race distance.

Horner's faux-pas has costly consequences.

 

Possibly they were all watching the radar trying to decide if it was tooooo wet lol.

 

And Norris nearly went into the wall when just cruising in the lead....

 

Here's a rundown of the radio conversations between Hamilton and Adami:

https://racingnews365.com/revealed-hamilton-ferrari-radio-tension-in-debut-frustration

 

Toto must be happy with his decision to promote Antonelli. It was tough race conditions for all the rookies in their first ever F1 race.

 

Great race, but (and some will disagree understandably) Norris was lucky by Lawson crashing out.

 

Great and tense race
The highligths to me were:
1- Fred Vasseur must take control again . Too many egos and emotional argumentation going on!
2- Toto did great with the Italian teenager!
3- McLarem is organized precise competent and focused.

 

Hoping that is their worst weekend this season, getting two cars in the points is better than DNFs and better than finishing out of the points!

 

Mclaren sounding like the 'new' RedBull for now!

 

WAY too much post race debate about the "team orders"! Those radio messages were very delayed if you listen. It was about getting around the Haas! I bet the "ok to race" was prior to Piastri locking up into the corner and he over did it trying to catch up.

Who had Lance Stroll finishing 6th on their bingo card???

Kimi has 2x more points than Ferrari... That was actually amazing!

 

An Italian teenager scored more points than the two SF cars? Really impressive...

 

All good, I know you usually get the sarcasm cause I see yours and laugh my ass off

 

No one talking about the team orders given to Oscar , then taken back once a gap opened up?

 

See you all next year!

 

Comparison / team/ car improvement between 2024 qualifying and 2025. (ignoring circuit changes)

Red Bull MV +0.434s faster 2nd
Ferrari CL +0.680s faster 8th
McLaren LN +1.219s faster 1st

I thought it said it all when Vowles said Sainz was instrumental in his advice re tyre changing / strategy. Perhaps SF are missing that vital bit in tyre management this year. You would have thought a mutiple WDC would have been sharper today.

 

He was too busy getting acclimatized to his car and race engineer let alone showing whatever talent he has in wet-to-dry conditions.

 

Supposedly they said no racing until they cleared traffic. Fair enough I guess. Getting through traffic alone could open the gap a bit, but I believe Oscar made a small mistake.

I'll give the team the benefit of the doubt for now.

 

It was a beautiful gesture by Hamilton senior, to doubt it is appalling and takes truckloads of cynicism. It was a horrible nightmare moment for Hadjar in his first ever F1 start, a moment he had dreamed of since he was a little boy and some nice words can make a world of difference in such moments.

To put things in perspective it can happen to anyone, some may recall that even Prost himself binned the car in the warm up lap at a wet Imola in his Ferrari days.

Hadjar had the best practice and qualifying of the rookies..and the worst sunday...I am sure he will impress very soon.
Meanwhile Antonelli is the real deal: most impressive. I have never said this but bravo Toto.

Ferrari: there seems to very be poor communication -and chemistry- between Sir Loulou and his engineer, both sides need to make an effort.

Charles qualified ahead, finished ahead and passed him twice today.