Top 10Cast: Verstappen, Hamilton, Alonso, Stroll, Perez, Norris, Hulkenberg, Piastri, Zhou, Tsunoda
The race was held as part of the third Grand Prix of the Formula 1 season in Australia.
The race was won by Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso rounding out the top 3.
Note that Verstappen, who started from pole, did not start the race very well and missed the duet of Mercedes George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Unfortunately, we did not see a long fight between Red Bull and two Mercedes, because first there were yellow flags due to the retirement of Charles Leclerc, and then red flags due to the accident of Alex Albon. Russell was unlucky here, who was in the lead, but pitted right in front of the red flags and dropped to 7th place, while Lewis and Max got a free pit. And soon after the resumption of the race on Russell’s car, the engine burned out and the Briton completed the stage.
After the restart, Verstappen quickly passed Hamilton and steadily increased his lead. It looked like Max would win quietly, but with three laps to go, Kevin Magnussen’s crash resulted in red flags.
At the restart, Verstappen and Hamilton retained their positions, but Carlos Sainz crashed into Alonso, who was third (he received a 5-second penalty to the final protocol for this and flew out of the top 10). All this led to chaos and the departure of a number of pilots, including Pierre Gasly on Alpin, who was unexpectedly 5th. As a result, the direction of the race announced another red flag, but since there were no more laps to the end, it was necessary to decide what to do next.
It was agreed that the remaining cars in the race would drive one more lap under the safety car in the order they had started before (minus those who were eliminated in the last incident).
This earned McLaren’s first points of the season for a double top 10 finish, as well as points for Hulkenberg, Zhou and Tsunoda.
