Pole sitter George Russell has won the Australian Grand Prix, leading his teammate Antonelli to a perfect result for Mercedes AMG F1. Ferrari didn’t make it easy though with the Maranello based team effectively losing out on strategy, forcing Leclerc to settle for third.
The Australian Grand Prix started poorly for the home crowd as home hero Piastri ended up in the wall in a formation lap, making him retire before the race had actually started. Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg at the time was already sidelined with technical trouble.
In a race that was expected to be one of attrition, that left 18 cars to start, readying for the new start procedure that includes a 5s lead time to enable drivers to rev up and prevent turbo lag as the regulations permit no battery usage at the start below 50km/h.
As was to be expected after some interesting practice starts in pre-season testing, Ferrari had an unbelievable getaway with both its cars , so much so that Charles Leclerc immediately shot to the lead before entering the first coner. As Russell struggles with his rear tyres slipping when the lights went out, Leclerc was soon in front while Antonelli similarly struggled and fell back to 6th.
Hamilton meanwhile moved up into third place before getting stuck behind Russell. He had to concede third to Hadjar through the first corner and subsequently got involved in a fight with a little pack of drivers including both Racing Bulls, Antonelli, Norris and of course Hadjar. The latter though soon realised Hamilton’s Ferrari was a lot faster while Lindblad also briefly found a way past the Red Bull.
By the end of lap 2, Leclerc and Russell were pulling away before Hamilton finally got into third and sprinted away, closing the then 3 second gap in just two laps. When followed at the front was a cat and dog fight between Leclerc and Russell with the Mercedes driver struggling to make it past the Ferrari for more than a full lap. Every time Russell made it past, Leclerc would return the favour with overtake enabled just a few corners later.
Russell constantly had to worry about Hamilton as well but surely was happy to see that Antonelli could rejoin the leaders around lap 10.
On lap 12 Hadjar retired with his engine up in smoke, triggering a VSC period that came too late for an immediate pitstop. Everybody from 5th pitted, followed by the Mercedes duo the next lap. Hamilton pointed out “at least one of us should’ve come in”, and Ferrari were ready to pit one of them the next lap, but apparently that stop for whoever it was got cancelled last minute.
Right after the restart, now with Russell in third and Antonelli in 5th, behind Lindblad, Alonso was told to retire with a car issue. He did so in the pits so without disrupting the race for anyone else. The Spaniard would later return to the track, 12 laps down, but good enough to do some more mileage and gather data the team still lacked after very limited mileage before the season’s start.
Verstappen at that time found himself already in 6th place following a last place start.
At lap 18 Bottas found himself parked in the grass just ahead of the pitlane entry, triggering yet another VSC that saw Lindblad and Verstappen nip and tuck into the pitlane. They returned to the track in 6th and 7th, dropping behind Norris but still with Verstappen behind the Racing Bulls rookie. That lasted only one more lap until the Dutchman eventually found enough battery power to take 6th place.
Up in front, Leclerc continued to lead with Hamilton about 1.5 seconds behind. Russell and Antonelli though quickly closed that gap, leaving 5.2 seconds between second and third place on lap 22. Antonelli followed about 6 seconds behind his teammate with Norris in 5th a massive 16 seconds down.
On lap 25, Leclerc gets pitted, changing to hard tyres and returning to the track a good 7 seconds behind Antonelli. Hamilton went on but the medium compound tyres were clearly close to the end of their life. Russell steadily closed in and took the lead 3 laps later, followed by Hamilton pitting. Back on track Hamilton found himself 6 seconds behind his teammate.
While positions and gaps remained steady among the top 4 in the next laps, Verstappen managed to make it up to 5h after putting the pressure on Norris. The McLaren driver struggled with old tyres and gave away the position by pitting, changing to medium tyres and returning to the track in 8th position, behind Lindblad and Bearman and 10 seconds ahead of Gasly and Ocon. Verstappen would later pit to change to hard tyres, promoting Norris back into 5th but with only 3s in hand and 15 laps left.
Meanwhile at Aston Martin, Alonso returned to the pits to retire again, followed by Stroll who also got pulled into the garage. Stroll would emerge back out for another couple of test laps but for Alonso it really was the end of running today.
In the fight for points, Verstappen mounted a serious challenge to Norris for 5th but it appeared like Norris could manage the gap well, consistently leaving Verstappen at enough of a distance to prevent him from even attempting a realistic overtake attempt.
Up on front, little changed in the final 10 laps. Russell calmly crossed the finish line, followed by Antonelli. Leclerc finished 10 seconds later with Hamilton right in his slipstream to underline a solid start for the Scuderia and setting things up for a promising 2026.