By Luke Pons
F1 finally returned kicking off the new season in Australia. It’s a big shake up this year with 6 new full season rookies, Hamilton at Ferrari and Sainz in a Williams the weekend was certainly set to be an exciting one. However, most of the 6 rookies will never forget their first weekend for more negative reasons, rather than positive reasons as rain struck Albert Park.
20 year old Isacc Hadjar won the Racing Bulls seat after Liam Lawsons promotion to Red Bull. Racing Bulls looked rather quick around Albert Park, Hadjar’s debut weekend was going smoothly as he finished within the top 10 in both Friday practice session and then followed that up with an 11th place finish in Qualifying missing out on Q3 by just 0.116s. Hadjar however never took up that spot on the grid for the race after spinning out within two corners of his maiden formation lap.
Lawsons first full F1 season after competing in 11 races for Red Bull’s junior team over the previous two seasons, but his debut outing for their main team was certainly 1 to forget.
On an Albert Park track he had never driven before, Lawson wasn’t happy with his pace in the RB21 in Friday practice and to make matters worse, a power unit problem rules him out of P3 losing him vital time to learn the track. It got from bad to worse a pair of mistakes in Q1 mixed with a lack of track and car time saw him drop out early in 18th place. Red Bull decided to take Lawson’s car out of parc ferme to add more rear wing on to aid downforce, changes which locked Lawson into a pit-lane start, but progress for the New Zealander up the field was still a struggle. Running 14th into the closing stages, their late gamble on sticking with slicks as the rain returned ultimately saw him spin into the wall rounding off a terrible weekend in the seat with the most expectation on the grid.
Kimi Antonelli took the Vacant Mercades seek after 7 time Champion Sir Lewis Hamilton departed for Ferrari. This made Kimi the third-youngest driver to ever start a Grand Prix. Antonelli Qualified 16th on the grid after a kerb strike in Q1 had caused floor damage to his W16, costing vital car performance. The perfect timing of Mercedes switch to intermediates with
14 laps to go worked massively in his favour with him moving up the field from 10th to fifth. Antonelli was composed and showed his overtaking quality by passing Alex Albon’s Williams for fourth on the penultimate lap around the outside into Turn Nine. That fourth-place finish stood after stewards overturned their earlier decision to impose a five-second time penalty on Antonelli for an unsafe pits release. The best performance out of the 6 rookies so far.
Australia’s Jack Doohan showed real promise over the weekend as he got to grips with his new team Alpine.
He qualified 14th, which could have been better but for the late yellow flags of Q2 given he had lapped 0.5s quicker in Q1 to outpace his teammate Pierre Gasly and was putting together a great weekend overall. That was until the first lap of the race when he dropped his car as he moved up the gears in the wet coming out of Turn Five. Doohan lost control, spun into the outside wall, and brought out the race’s first of three Safety Cars. A real shame after a very positive Friday and Saturday at his home race.
Future Ferrari prospect Oliver Bearman took the seat at Haas, He missed all of the second practice session after doing major damage to his car by crashing in P1, before then beaching it in the gravel when back on track on Saturday morning. A gearbox glitch at the start of qualifying condemned him to the back of the grid. And despite starting from the pit lane, he completed the race finishing back of the grid in 14th a small positive for Bearman in what looks like another slow car from Haas.
How this team can get surprise podiums in 2025!
Two days after saying he would prove Red Bull’s Helmut Marko wrong about being ranked as a ‘B driver’ by the Austrian among F1’s rookie class, F2 champion and new Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto was the only rookie to outqualify his more experienced team-mate. However, the Brazilian rookie’s race ended with 12 laps to go when he spun off at the penultimate corner on his new intermediate tyres as the rain pelted down.
The rookies certainly saw the tough side of F1 last weekend with the rain, car issues and lack of track time certainly throwing a few spanners on the work. They will certainly be hoping for a better outcome at the Chinese GP weekend starting 21st of March.
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