Pole man Charles Leclerc got his Ferrari off to a clean start for the 2022 Australian GP as Max Verstappen pursued him into the first corner. However, things were not good for Carlos Sainz, who had started in P9 and then fell to 13th right away. Trying hard to make up, he lost it in Turn 9 and slid into the gravel. This brought out the Virtual Safety Car to enable marshals to clear the Ferrari.
Shortly after, the F1 Safety Car entered the track to manage the racing cars. During that time, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was the first to come back to the pits to move to hard tyres. The early appearance of the Safety Car meant that tyre temperatures did not get up to optimum fast enough as the cars slowed down.
The Safety Car departed on lap 7 and racing resumed with Leclerc still in the lead. The regulations for race restarts after the Safety Car departs have been made clearer and the tactics which Verstappen used in the previous 3 races (running alongside the leader) are no longer permitted.
On restart, Leclerc shot forward to try to widen the gap with the Red Bull and in doing so, set the first fastest lap of the day, putting himself almost a second ahead of Verstappen. Behind them, Hamilton was busy keeping Sergio Perez from getting past to take his third place.
Though the track is familiar to most of the drivers, the resurfacing had made it a bit slippery too and this was something they had to contend with. Sebastian Vettel slid off momentarily and Verstappen was complaining of tyre graining.
On lap 10, Perez flew past Hamilton on DRS to take over third and the Mercedes-AMG driver clearly could not do anything. With two Red Bulls behind him, albeit with a 3-second gap from Verstappen, the pressure on Leclerc increased.
Verstappen’s struggles saw him dropping back further to 9 seconds from Leclerc by lap 17, amd he came in 2 laps later for a tyre change, rejoining at 7th ahead of Fernando Alonso. This moved Perez up to second but he too came in on lap 21 to get onto hard tyres. The Red Bull pit stops moved Hamilton and George Russell up to second and third places behind Leclerc, albeit some 17 seconds away.
Finally on lap 22, Leclerc came in and so did Hamilton, and the Ferrari did not lose its lead while Hamilton was able to get ahead of Perez. Verstappen had moved back to second and was 4 seconds behind the Ferrari and then Vettel lost it and crashed into a barrier near Turn 4. Out came the Safety Car, negating the Dutchman’s advantageous position. Russell took the opportunity to come in for his tyre change and managed to get back in third place.
Racing resumed on lap 27 and Leclerc took off but just barely stayed ahead of Verstappen as they both entered Turn 3. Russell was also close but had to watch out for Alonso who was making a bid for the third place. But before long, Perez was the one to hassle the new Mercedes-AMG driver as Alonso dropped back and became the target for Hamilton.
With more than half the race completed, only three drivers had not changed from their hard tyres – Alonso, Kevin Magnussen and Alex Albon, The others would be managing their tyres to make it to the 58th lap.
Magnussen’s battle with Daniel Riccardo ended on lap 34 when he could not prevent the McLaren from getting past and joining team mate Lando Norris.
On lap 38, disaster struck again for Verstappen as smoke and then fire appeared from his car and his engineer ordered him to stop immediately near Turn 2. The Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was activated to allow marshals to take action to remove the car. It was lap 40 when the VSC was deactivated and just prior to its activation, Russell was advised to not fight Perez so as not to damage his tyres, and he reluctantly let the Red Bull pass. So it was a Red Bull still second, though 12 seconds behind Leclerc. Verstappen’s fire was of concern to Perez who recalled how his own car had also died just after Verstappen’s in the first round. However, his engineer told him not to worry.
For Hamilton and Russell, running in third and fourth, the gap was not enough to make an effort to go for Perez so they focussed on tyre management to make sure that they finished the race. If bad luck hit the Mexican Red Bull driver, then it would be a bonus for them but for Leclerc, things were very much in control with a 14-second gap.
With 5 laps remaining, it appeared that the frontrunners had settled into maintaining positions to complete the race. Further back, Pierre Gasly was fighting hard to keep at least 10th place and stay in points as Lance Stroll and Guanyu Zhou kept duelling with him.
And so it was Ferrari’s day again as Leclerc crossed the line, a comfortable 20 seconds ahead of Perez, with the two Mercedes-AMGs in third and fourth.
