McLaren makes Melbourne statement; cause for concern at fallen giant: F1 form guide analysed

The Australian Grand Prix left us with as many questions as it did answers.

After the obfuscation of pre-season testing, Melbourne did at least give us a reasonably detailed form guide. While the field overall looks closer than ever, one team emerged as being clearly fastest, with the gauntlet now thrown down to the three other presumed frontrunners to close the gap.

The midfield was also fascinating, with new teams rising to the front of the sub-pack after productive off-seasons.

Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every qualifying session and race in the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship™, LIVE in 4K with no ad-breaks during racing. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer.

But several teams found themselves missing their marks in Melbourne, and while for some their underperformance is explainable by circumstance, for others it’s harder to make excuses.

1. McLAREN (27 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: fastest

Best race finish: winner (Norris)

McLaren was tipped to lead the sport after pre-season testing, and despite typical protestations, Australia proved that the reigning constructors champion really is a cut above the rest.

Lando Norris took pole with an almost 0.4-second margin over the next-fastest non-McLaren car, and the team would have scored a comfortable one-two had it not been for the sudden arrival of rain after half distance that sent both Norris and Oscar Piastri off the road.

Tellingly Norris had plenty of time to rejoin with his lead intact, even if Piastri got bogged down in the wet grass and dropped to the back

Of course Norris’s victory margin was eventually slender, but the most telling part of the race was in the first stint after Piastri had broken past Max Verstappen to pursue the lead.

The two McLaren cars gapped Verstappen at an average of nearly 0.85 seconds per lap — a considerable margin.

The team’s execution was also much improved, with Norris all but admitting that had the race been run last year, victory wouldn’t have been assured, just as the team fumbled victory chances in Britain and Canada.

The team says it was surprised by its advantage and that it expects things to be more difficult depending on the circuit, with Bahrain highlighted as its first potential struggle.

But after Melbourne you’d have to say it has a built-in buffer that should see it contending for victories at most venues.

PIT TALK: Lando Norris beats Max Verstappen to victory in wet-weather Melbourne after home favourite Oscar Piastri spins off the road to ninth, and what’s the story behind Ferrari’s big flop?

2. MERCEDES (27 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 3rd, +0.450 seconds

Best race finish: 3rd (Russell)

An unremarkable race weekend for Mercedes delivered a remarkable 3-4 result led by George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the latter sensationally rising from 16th in his debut race.

The Mercedes car was something of an unknown quantity after testing. It looked like it had taken a step forward on last season, but the unusually cool Bahrain conditions — and the Mercedes loved the cold last year — meant it was hard to know how seriously to take the results.

We got a partial answer in Melbourne, where on a cold — and, albeit, wet — circuit on Sunday the team was third quickest, with strong execution from the pit wall and clean driving from the pilots maximising the results

That also comes with the asterisk that Ferrari clearly underperformed — more on that later — and could well move ahead of Mercedes in ordinary conditions.

In other words, there’s yet no compelling evidence that it’s relatively any better off than in 2024 — likely to have its strong races but generally a step behind the contenders.

3. RED BULL RACING (18 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 2nd, +0.385 seconds

Best race finish: 2nd (Verstappen)

Red Bull Racing telegraphed that it wouldn’t be in victory contention in Australia, and so it proved, with only safety cars bringing Max Verstappen into contention late in the grand prix.

On pure pace the RB21 is the second-quickest machine — with the asterisk that Ferrari is yet to show its hand.

But there’s a further condition here, and that is that Verstappen’s RB21 is in the ballpark. In a familiar sight to anyone who’s been watching Formula 1, the other car was never in the picture.

Liam Lawson qualified 18th, started from the pit lane and was generally ineffectual in the race before crashing out of it after 46 laps.

There are mitigating circumstances for Lawson’s underwhelming drive. His pre-season test was interrupted. He lost all FP3 to a power unit issue. He’s raced in only 11 grands prix. His teammate is Max Verstappen.

Perhaps most concerning, however, is that we know Lawson is competitive from his 11 previous starts. The fact he couldn’t get a handle on this car suggests Red Bull Racing it still a way away from solving the underlying handling issues with its car that cost it last year’s constructors title.

4. WILLIAMS (10 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 5th, +0.641 seconds

Best race finish: 5th (Albon)

This was a remarkable result for a team that started the year talking about 2026 rather than 2025.

Principal James Vowles has said in no uncertain terms that his plan to rebuild the team is all about being ready for next year’s rule changes. While 2025 wouldn’t be totally written off, more important was getting the processes right this year, not so much the car performance.

What transpired was a pleasant surprise: both cars comfortably through to Q3 and Alex Albon finishing an excellent fifth to score more than half the team’s 2024 points haul in a single race.

Considering where Williams was in Australia last year – once car down due to a lack of spares and finishing a lapped 12th – it’s an enormously impressive turnaround.

“These conditions are typically what we hate,” Albon said. “Despite all of that, we were still one of the strongest midfield runners out there.

“Points like today mean a lot and I’m positive about what’s to come.”

A genuine contender for fifth in the championship, Williams is emanating good vibes at the moment.

5. ASTON MARTIN (8 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 8th, +1.192 seconds

Best race finish: 6th (Stroll)

It would do Aston Martin and Lance Stroll a disservice to call their eight points lucky. Fortune was only part of the equation; a clean race from the Canadian and a well-judged strategy from the pit wall were crucial contributors.

It’s just that there was no point this weekend that the AMR25 looked like a genuine top-10 car.

That said, there were some genuine positives.

The fact Stroll had such a clean race in such tricky conditions — Fernando Alonso’s crash notwithstanding — suggests the team’s objective to make the car more forgiving during the off-season has been met. It wouldn’t have been able to stay on the greasy tarmac otherwise.

But that’s come at the expense of downforce, and qualifying showed it up to be rightly mired in the middle of the midfield.

Perhaps most telling of all, however, was Alonso’s new stance on answering questions, at least on Fridays, opting to do the absolute minimum to satisfy the requirement to talk to the media. You wouldn’t say it’s the move of a driver totally comfortable with where his team is at ahead of another 23 rounds.

6. SAUBER (6 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 9th, +1.420 seconds

Best race finish: 7th (Hülkenberg)

Sauber might just be the biggest positive new story of the opening round.

Whereas Williams had been tipped to make gains this year, even if it did better than forecast, testing suggesting Sauber would be bolted to the bottom of the table thanks to a stiff, snappy and recalcitrant new car.

You couldn’t totally blame the team either. It finished last in 2024, and it will be motivated to invest heavily in 2026 to do justice to Audi’s formal debut.

But team principal Mattia Binotto wanted the Swiss team to get some runs on the board this year as a morale booster.

Evidently the approach is working.

New front suspension and bodywork were brought to Melbourne, and immediately from practice it was clear the car was in a better way.

Gabriel Bortoleto starred in qualifying by breaking into Q2, but Nico Hulkenberg proved his worth with an assured seventh on a day made for veteran drivers.

For the first time in a long time this historically independent team looked like it was clicking. It’s not about to slay any giants, but suddenly 2024 isn’t the write-off predicted.

7. FERRARI (5 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 6th +0.659 seconds

Best race finish: 8th (Leclerc)

Oof.

Ferrari was the form team of the final months of last season. While testing was inconclusive, consensus suggested it could be in the mix for at least second best, if not as a McLaren contender.

Friday practice backed that up, with Charles Leclerc fastest and sounding genuinely optimistic that his pace was representative.

But then it all went wrong.

The team hit a ceiling on Saturday morning that it’s yet to explain. Perhaps it simply wasn’t reflexive enough in the changeable conditions, failing to make the step when the weather dramatically warmed on Saturday and neglecting to prepare for Sunday’s rain and plunging mercury.

Whatever the reason — and the team hasn’t given much away — it ended up eighth and 10th on the road. The car is obviously faster than that, but Ferrari’s underperformance means it’s currently impossible to say where its truly sits in the order.

But more concerning were the little operational problems that crept into the team’s execution.

The communication issues in particular were worrying considering they were more reminiscent of Ferrari in the days before team boss Frédéric Vasseur, who had seemed to iron them out in the last two years.

The gamble staying out on slicks at the late rain also had a whiff of either desperation or clumsy misjudgment. Either way it wasn’t good.

Some of it was down to Lewis Hamilton’s ongoing transition into the team, for which he admitted he has a longer path ahead of him than he’d hoped.

But that doesn’t account for all of it. On and off the track Ferrari clearly has work to do.

8. ALPINE (0 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 7th, +0.884 seconds

Best race finish: 11th (Gasly)

Alpine will have come away from Melbourne frustrated not to have scored but quietly pleased with how it performed, having proved that it has continued its upwards trajectory from late last season.

Both cars were Q3 threats, though a yellow flag in Q2 prevented Jack Doohan, impressively rapid in just his second race, from following Pierre Gasly into the top 10.

Doohan’s raw speed may have given management something to think about too regarding the long-rumoured impending swap with reserve driver Franco Colapinto. Gasly has been in fine for since ascending to the team leadership, and the fact Doohan could match him should’ve had some doubters sit up and take notice.

Gasly started ninth and held that place until the final stages of the race, in part because of a tyre gamble that went wrong.

Unfortunately Doohan’s race ended in a crash, though he was one of four rookies to retire in the tricky conditions.

It’s a strong year-on-year turnaround for the French team and has earnt it a place in the fight for fifth in the constructors championship, though it didn’t quite have Williams’s number in that battle.

An all-in-all positive weekend.

9. RACING BULLS (0 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 4th, +0.574 seconds

Best race finish: 12th (Tsunoda)

Ferrari cops significant criticism when it makes bad strategy calls, but its fellow Italian team, Racing Bulls, has a worse record of committing strategic howlers that throw away rare points.

The team committed another major blunder at the weekend, leaving the impressive Yuki Tsunoda out on slicks far too long in a misguided gamble.

Tsunoda had been running a confident and comfortable sixth before the rain arrived. The team’s tardiness making a call meant he rejoined after his pit stop 11th and out of the points.

The team publicly apologised to its Japanese star afterwards.

It was a rough deal for the weekend’s second-quickest Red Bull backed driver, but he might take some solace in the fact his car was much more competitive than previously thought, at least around Albert Park.

Tsunoda’s fifth on the grid was a good sign, but better was Isack Hadjar’s impressive 11th in his first F1 qualifying session. It suggests the car has become easier to driver – and of course that the Frenchman is quickly acclimatising to Formula 1.

10. HAAS (0 POINTS)

Qualifying pace: 10th, +2.051 seconds

Best race finish: 13th (Ocon)

Oh dear. The good news story of 2024 has slumped to the very back of the order, and at no stage in Melbourne did it seem likely to unshackle itself from the back.

To be fair, there were some mitigating circumstances. Rookie Oliver Bearman completed just 14 laps before qualifying, having missed almost all of Friday thanks to an FP1 crash and then having beached his car almost immediately in FP3.

How much did running just one car for the build-up – plus the distraction of having to rebuild the Englishman’s machine – contribute to the team missing its mark?

But even if that all did contribute heavily, it’s still hard to get past the car’s general lethargy on track. Esteban Ocon appeared to suggest the team had been too conservative with set-up on Friday, but there was no real evidence of improvement on Saturday and Sunday.

Right now it looks like there just isn’t pace in the car, and considering how many of its fellow midfield teams have made considerable steps forward this season, that could become a huge problem as the year wears on.