Round One : Qualifying & Comparisons
The first qualifying session of the season has been completed and it couldn't have been more unexpected, Let's Talk Track.
Qualifying at Albert Park couldn’t have gone more unexpectantly, from the underperforming Ferraris, to the Red Bull at P18, it’s safe to say this season won’t be as smooth sailing as it first appears.
The session began with Q1, in which the Mercedes driver, Antonelli, and Red Bull driver, Lawson, found themselves falling P16 and P18 respectively. Despite Kimi Antonelli’s underwhelming result, the reason for it wasn’t in his control, but instead lead within the floor of his car, which could be seen sparking excessively throughout his lap. On the other side of this, Lawson’s result was the consequence of his own driving, as he ran wide into the gravel trap at turn 10 and onto the grass at turn 13. So, this leaves the question: having just replaced Sergio Perez due to his underperformances, could he follow the same fate?
Ollie Bearman, having already experienced a chaotic weekend in practice, failed to set any lap time due to gearbox issues, so consequently starts tomorrows race at the back of the grid. Q2 commenced, and we saw a mid-lap spin from the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton at turn 11. Because of this, the new Alpine driver, Jack Doohan, was affected due to the yellow flag conditions, and in result couldn’t set a time good enough for Q3. We also saw VCARB driver, Isack Hadjar narrowly miss out on Q3 by 0.063s, making him the highest qualified rookie driver on the grid line up for tomorrow’s race.
In the final part of Qualifying, Q3, we saw decent lap times from all remaining drivers, but a few stood out the most. Yuki Tsunoda’s VCARB and Alex Albon’s Williams outqualified both Ferraris, which place them P5 and P6, while the 2 McLarens made it to the front row, following up with Verstappen in P3. Despite the disappointing start to the season for Ferrari, many teams and drivers have made it clear that the Ferrari cars have much more potential than has been shown so far. McLaren’s Team Principle, Andrea Stella, commented, “ I don’t really take Ferrari’s performance today at face value. I think they are much closer than the gaps would show ”.
Going into tomorrow’s race, there have been talks of possible rain, but it’s unclear when and how it will affect the circuit and strategy, since the last wet race in Australia was 2010. There are 3 main different possible scenarios that could unfold for race day:
The rain avoids the circuit: in this case, the quickest strategy would be a one-stop, since graining has shown to be minimal compared to last years race, where most drivers had 2 stops. The drivers would start on a medium tyre, then pit between laps 20-26 for hards to finish.
It rains, but stops before the race start: in this scenario, the track would be clean and so graining would increase. This means the tyres would degrade faster and would need 2 stops for optimal grip. This is similar to last years set of strategies. For this, driver’s would start on the medium tyre and pit around lap 13-19 for hard tyres, they then would pit again for another set of hards at lap 33-39 to complete the race.
It becomes a wet race: if the rain persists the whole race, we may not see a different compound other than the inters/wets for the duration of the grand prix. But, if it rains for half of the race then clears up, it becomes a gamble for every team and could possibly lead to a podium chance for most. This was seen in Melbourne in 2010, where Jenson Button took a risk to pit for slicks very soon after the rain had cleared up. Despite initially slipping off the track momentarily, he then went on to win the race, having took that risk earlier than others did.
After completing the first Qualifying session of 2025, it gives us the data to compare how far the teams have improved since last season.
( Comparing the fastest set laps for each team)
