Reason to believe Piastri can make history; F1 strugglers hit ‘rock bottom’ — Aus GP form guide

Last year’s Australian Grand Prix has lived long in the memory of Formula 1 — or at least the final laps of the race have.

Kevin Magnussen’s crash on lap 55 of 58 broke what had been a monotonous Max Verstappen procession by inducing a red flag.

Regulations allow for the race to be restarted on the grid. That’s where the trouble started.

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Two cars were beached in the stones. Fernando Alonso was spun around. The Alpine teammates smashed into each other and out of the race.

Another red flag, another restart, but this time a safety car finish, with further catastrophe avoided.

This year Formula 1 arrives Down Under with the form guide looking much the same — with Red Bull Racing and Verstappen leading the way — but with the angst ratcheted up behind them, where several teams have found themselves well behind their pre-season targets in the opening rounds of 2024.

Who will find redemption in Melbourne?

RED BULL RACING — 87 POINTS (+0.007 SECONDS)

Max Verstappen: P1 (51 points)

Sergio Perez: P2 (36 points)

Melbourne 2023: Pole-getter Verstappen was jumped off the line by both Mercedes drivers but had no real trouble recovering the lead and winning the race. Pérez started from pit lane after crashing out of Q1 and charged home in fifth.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

If you were to consider Red Bull Racing’s on-track performances only, this would be a practically flawless start to the season. Max Verstappen has won both grands prix and scored 51 of 52 available points, a hit rate of 98 per cent.

Sergio Pérez, despite ongoing qualifying weaknesses that have left him fifth and third on the grid, has had no real trouble finishing second in both races.

Off the track, however, is a dramatically different story, with the team rife with political infighting and principal Christian Horner facing an appeal investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour made against him by a female member of staff.

So far the off-track drama hasn’t infected the race team, which continues to operate at a high level. Will that continue to be the case if the season runs on without a resolution?

And as a supplementary but no less important question: can Pérez keep up his good form to earn himself a new contract, or will the Mexican wilt once Verstappen really hits his stride, as has been the pattern of recent seasons?

FERRARI — 49 POINTS (+0.160 SECONDS)

Charles Leclerc: P3 (28 points)

Carlos Sainz: P6 (15 points)

Oliver Bearman: P10 (6 points)

Melbourne 2023: Leclerc clumsily threw away his race in the gravel on the first lap. Sainz was set to finish fourth, but a late five-second penalty for causing a collision dropped him out of the points thanks to the safety car finish.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

Ferrari has reset itself as Red Bull Racing’s closest challenger in 2024, but ‘closest’ is relative.

The good news for Ferrari fans is that the remodelled car has retained the sizzling single-lap pace that took Leclerc to three of the last five poles of 2023. In Bahrain the SF-24 was the fastest car of all in qualifying, and in Saudi Arabia it established itself in a class of its own behind Red Bull Racing but ahead of the rest of the pack.

Gone is its problematic tyre usage and unpredictability. Both Leclerc and Sainz have praised their new machine’s driveability after scoring a podium apiece in the first two races, which in turn has sparked optimism about its upgrade potential.

But the gap to Red Bull Racing is large — in the vicinity of 0.3 seconds per lap on Sunday. Melbourne’s smooth surface should neuter some of the RB20’s strengths, but Ferrari otherwise has no obvious advantage to play with, just a small general deficit.

The gap won’t be easily bridged in one weekend, but can the Italian team start to apply some pressure?

PIT TALK PODCAST: Formula 1 returns to Albert Park with Oscar Piastri and his McLaren team in podium-contending form. After finishing fourth in Saudi Arabia last time out, can Piastri go one better and be the first Australian to finish on the podium at home?

McLAREN — 28 POINTS (+0.533 SECONDS)

Oscar Piastri: P5 (16 points)

Lando Norris: P8 (12 points)

Melbourne 2023: After a horror start to the season at the back of field and after qualifying 13th and 16th, Norris and Piastri made steady progress up the order and capitalised on the late carnage to score their first points of the year — and Oscar’s first of his career — in sixth and eighth.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

McLaren isn’t exactly where it’d have hoped to have been after what it felt was a very strong off-season. It’s still in the mix at the front, but the gap to Red Bull Racing has widened since 2023.

Some weaknesses have carried over.

McLaren still ships time in slow corners, particularly on entry, which is a problem for practically all the last sector in Melbourne.

It’s also diabolically slow down the straights — it was the third-slowest car with DRS open in Jeddah, and Albert Park features four DRS zones.

But Melbourne could play more to the team’s strengths than its weaknesses.

The MCL38 is still super effective in high-speed corners, of which there are many since the track’s reprofiling in 2022.

Straight-line speed can be improved with wiser set-up choices — and the nature of the track means there’s less need to protect the rear tyres, which will give the team more options to work with.

McLaren won’t start this weekend as a podium favourite behind Ferrari, but it can certainly be in the mix if it plays its cards right. Can it play the odds and get an Aussie onto their home podium for the first time ever?

MERCEDES — 26 POINTS (+0.582 SECONDS)

George Russell: P4 (18 points)

Lewis Hamilton: P9 (8 points)

Melbourne 2023: Russell and Hamilton jumped Verstappen for the lead off the line, but the younger Briton suffered a terminal engine failure early in the race. Hamilton was subsequently defenceless against the faster Verstappen and finished second.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

Mercedes is arriving in Australia with more questions than answers from its confounding W15 car.

It’s a less treacherous car to drive than its predecessor but performs in ways the team doesn’t expect or understand.

Through high-speed corners it’s particularly bad — in fact it’s among the worst performers on the grid. The car unexpectedly and inexplicably loses downforce, and the drivers are subjected to the spine-crunching bouncing Brackley has worked so hard to eliminate over the last two years.

Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has admitted the team will spend the three hours of practice in Melbourne running experiments to try to understand why expectations from the wind tunnel and simulator aren’t matching the reality of the track.

Albert Park is an atypical circuit, even on the ballooning 24-track calendar, so solutions found this weekend probably won’t solve all the team’s woes.

But it badly needs a boost after a disheartening start to the year. Can it find it at Albert Park?

ASTON MARTIN — 13 POINTS (+0.376 SECONDS)

Fernando Alonso: P7 (12 points)

Lance Stroll: P12 (1 point)

Melbourne 2023: Alonso collected his third successive podium in Aston Martin’s sensational start to the year, while Stroll benefited from post-race penalties to follow him home in fourth.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

Aston Martin has stabilised among the frontrunners this year, albeit toward the back of the group and the middle of the overall field.

In Alonso’s hands the AMR24 is qualifying weapon behind only Red Bull Racing and Ferrari.

Race pace, however, is a different story. Though it’s arguably still the third-quickest car and is decent in a straight line — handy for Melbourne — it’s track dependent whether it’s able to stay ahead of Mercedes and McLaren.

The team’s situation isn’t helped by Stroll’s relatively limp performances in the second car.

Despite the yawning chasm between the top and bottom five teams, Stroll missed out on Q3 in Bahrain and only just managed to finish 10th.

In Saudi Arabia he squeezed into 10th on the grid but clumsily crashed out of the race.

The 25-year-old so far hasn’t lived up to the potential of the car, and pressure will mount on him if he can’t catch up to Alonso — especially if the Spaniard decides to leave at the end of the season.

Can he justify his place among the top 10?

HAAS — 1 POINT (+1.117 SECONDS)

Nico Hulkenberg: P11 (1 point)

Kevin Magnussen: P15 (0 points)

Melbourne 2023: Magnussen caused the late-race chaos after coming off second best in a duel with the barriers. Hülkenberg looked good to capitalise on the subsequent carnage, through which he emerged in P4, but the resetting of the grid put him back down to seventh.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

Hülkenberg scored the first point of any of the bottom five teams in Saudi Arabia — “gold dust” as team principal Ayao Komatsu described — to give the American squad an immediate boost.

The car’s catastrophic tyre wear problems appear to have been ameliorated without having to exchange single-lap pace thank to the disciplined work conducted during testing.

In Hülkenberg’s hands the car has been effective, including with a Q3 appearance in Bahrain and 10th place in Jeddah.

The season has started in a much more assured manner than it ended, when the team appeared to be helplessly spiralling backwards.

The veteran German’s slick performances — including last season — have gradually turned the blowtorch onto Magnussen.

Can the Dane lift his game to avoid having to make way for Oliver Bearman next season?

WILLIAMS — 0 POINTS (+1.346 SECONDS)

Alex Albon: P13 (0 points)

Logan Sargeant: P19 (0 points)

Melbourne 2023: Albon qualified a superb eighth and was running sixth when he crashed at high speed on lap 7 — a rare error. Still fresh rookie Sargeant trailed towards the back and punted fellow newbie Nyck de Vries out of the race at the late restart.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

The Williams ship has been steadied under the leadership of James Vowles, but it will take time for the changes to become obvious on the track.

Vowles has revolutionised the old-school Williams team by hauling its processes and procedures into line with its modern competitors. It came at the cost of the car arriving later than planned and undercooked, but it should set the team up for future seasons.

This year’s car has made some driveability gains in exchange for losses elsewhere, leaving it mired in the five-strong backmarker group.

Albon remains a star performer who reliability gets the most from the machine. Sargeant remains under pressure in his second year, having been told he must be the “surprise of the season” to keep his seat for 2025 — a vaguely backhanded piece of motivation.

Can the American save his seat?

SAUBER — 0 POINTS (+1.649 SECONDS)

Zhou Guanyu: P14 (0 points)

Valtteri Bottas: P20 (0 points)

Melbourne 2023: Zhou capitalised on the late carnage to come home ninth for his first points of the year. Bottas, starting from pit lane with suspension changes, came close to lucky, moving up to 11th just outside the points.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

Sauber has continued its slide backwards since its optimistic start under these rules in 2022. It’s among the slowest qualifiers — neither driver has made it out of Q1 this season — and is arguably the slowest racer in the pack, damning it to the back of the field.

It paints the picture that the team was hoping to avoid with its chaotic rebranding: that it’s waiting for Audi to complete its purchase of the historic Swiss operation and begin the rebuilding effort.

Some of that is already ongoing behind the scenes, and Audi has committed to hastening the process. There is some hope that new technical leadership can begin to reverse the slide.

Zhou and Bottas will be counting on competitive upgrades to keep themselves in the shop window for next season, with both drivers out of contract. Both would love to become Audi works drivers, but it’s hard to mount a compelling case when you’re stuck on the back two rows of the grid.

Who will prevail at the wannabe future frontrunner?

RB — 0 POINTS (+1.020 SECONDS)

Daniel Ricciardo: P16 (0 points)

Yuki Tsunoda: P18 (0 points)

Melbourne 2023: Tsunoda capitalised on the late carnage to score a point for 10th, while rookie teammate Nyck de Vries was clumsily punted out of the race by Sargeant at the restart.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

After two races there’s no real sign of the pre-season hype that RB might be an occasional frontrunning interloper.

Its qualifying pace puts it comfortably at the head of the backmarker five, and Tsunoda picked up a valuable Q3 appearance in Saudi Arabia to boost morale.

But in race trim it’s been decidedly average and verging on poor, with neither the Japanese star nor Aussie Ricciardo able to get genuinely close to points.

Notable was that their two dramatically different races in Jeddah last time out ended with them split by just a few seconds by the end of the race — at least before Ricciardo’s clumsy spin.

Both are under immense pressure.

Tsunoda wants to prove he’s Red Bull Racing material and at a minimum retain his seat next season.

Ricciardo needs to comfortably dispatch his teammate to prove he can replace Pérez.

The Aussie has already been given the hurry-up by Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko after his disappointing Saudi weekend, though Ricciardo has heavily hinted the team found major problems with his car after qualifying that couldn’t be fixed.

A bounce-back this weekend would be timely, and not just because he’ll be cheered on by his home fans.

Who will prevail in this high-stakes intrateam duel?

ALPINE — 0 POINTS (+1.816 SECONDS)

Esteban Ocon: P17 (0 points)

Pierre Gasly: P21 (0 points)

Melbourne 2023: Gasly and Ocon were on track to return a double points finish for Alpine when all hell broke loose at the late restart. Lining up fifth and 10th respectively, Gasly left the track at the first turn and rejoined unsafely, crunching Ocon into the wall and putting both out of the race in an early sign of the dire days to come that season.

Melbourne 2024 outlook

Not long ago former Alpine boss Laurent Rossi set his team a 100-race plan to return to podium and victory contention as part of Renault’s reinvestment in Formula 1.

That plan comes to fruition this season.

The team has slumped to a painful, woeful last.

This year’s car is all new, but while teething problems might explain part of its lacklustre speed — and give hope of progressive improvements with each race — technical director Matt Harman and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer’s decisions to leave the team points to a grim pessimism at Enstone.

This is rock bottom — or you’d certainly hope it is.

But the idea that the only way is up will be of cold comfort to race winners Ocon and Gasly, who at 27 and 28 years old respectively presumably won’t want to commit several years to an uncertain project with unclear potential.

In less than a year the team has lost its principal, sporting director, chief technical officer, technical director and head of aero.

Losing a driver or two would be a bitter blow.

Its 2024 mission: can Alpine hold itself together?