An eventful weekend last weekend with the 75th season of Formula One kicking off in Melbourne, Australia, with a lot of interesting hints for the season to come.
First of all, everything we heard in pre-season testing about the Mclaren is true. It is fast, maybe a little too fast.There is a bit of speculation though about the drivers, with them being given permission to race following Piastri’s contract extension. This coupled with last season's drama around ‘Papaya Rules’, and a quote from Norris saying that the car isn’t the only thing that matters when asked about a potential championship win for him, Mclaren is starting off strong with what looks like tense team conditions.
Meanwhile, Mercedes is absolutely embarrassing Lewis Hamilton. In the past years Mercedes has fallen from dominance and with that last February, Lewis made the choice to leave. After 12 seasons, six driver championships, and eight constructors championships, the team’s golden boy parted. Leaving them to scramble for a replacement. The come up was pretty rapid though, with Mercedes fighting for wins last season and starting this season by securing a P3 and P4 finish with who looks to be the best rookie on the grid.
Red Bull unfortunately is having their own issues. While one race might be too soon to tell, history repeats itself as Verstappen severely out performs his teammate. This year Liam Lawson plays the part of Junior driver for the team, a notoriously tricky spot to be in. Red Bull tries to balance a world championship driver with a counterpart who can keep up with him but not compete with him. Of course this is what many teams aim to achieve, but Red Bull has secured the first half. They have the fiercely loyal, entirely skilled driver that is known as ‘Mad Max’.The tricky part for them is finding a suitable equal. Of course I say equal lightly.
This actually is similar to the potential issues we see in Mclaren. See, Mclaren have two drivers both potentially capable of winning a drivers championship. So in theory, a team in that position has to pick which driver to back and when to give the second choice team orders. This is exactly the situation that Red Bull aims to avoid. However, because of their efforts to support Max, they lost out on a team championship by not having a strong second driver.
So, one race in, and everything is already up in the air, with more to come. For those interested in how this all might play out, the next race is this Sunday.