Five Formula 1 Winners & Losers: Australian Grand Prix

Photo by Mark Thompson from Getty Images

Let me give a very, very big shout out to whoever decided to make the Australian Grand Prix start at midnight EST instead of 2:00 A.M.

You’re a legend.

Because of that, I was actually able to stay up and watch the race!

And with that, here are the winners and losers.

Losers

5. Logan Sargeant

Logan Sargeant did nothing wrong this weekend.

In fact, it was his teammate Alex Albon during practice that crashed the car and ruined the chassis, with Williams not having a spare chassis.

Despite that, Williams gave Albon Sargeant’s car and forced Sargeant to sit out for the weekend.

For the record, I do get it.

You have one car, which is one shot at points, and Albon is a faster driver than Sargeant.

But it doesn’t make it completely unfair that Logan has to sit out for someone else’s mistake.

Let’s hope he uses this as a springboard.

4. Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen didn’t win the race!!!!!

It was because he had a brake failure, but that’s still not winning!

Don’t worry. I’m sure regular scheduling will commence in two weeks time.

3. Sauber

Third race of the year, and the third time Sauber ends up on the losers list.

And it’s the third time the reason is due to a horrible, horrible pit stop.

Something has got to give.

2. George Russell

It was going to be a decent chunk of points for Russell, before the Mercedes driver crashed on the 2nd to last lap of the race.

McLaren has shown they’re not going to make this battle easy for Mercedes if they want to end up 3rd, so every point matters.

Crashes like this won’t help.

1. Lewis Hamilton

The car is slow. Lewis can’t seem to get a grasp on it. The engine died ruining any possible chance of points.

But the worst of it all is that Hamilton sounds so defeated.

His confidence is very, very low right now.

A fresh start at Ferrari is probably exactly what he needs, but he still has almost a full season to get some confidence back before then.

Winners

5. Lance Stroll

Stroll was finally able to put a full race together without incident, and the results were a solid qualifying session and a 6th place finish.

Great to see for Aston Martin.

4. Yuki Tsunoda

Every point in the midfield fight matters.

8th for Yuki and 4 points for RB Honda is a great result.

3. Haas

I truly believed that Haas would be far and away the slowest car of the year.

They didn’t spend money. Their team principal left before the season began. It seemed absolutely doomed.

And yet, they’ve scored points in 2 of 3 races and are sitting at 7th in the constructor standings.

They aren’t going to compete for race wins, but competing for points is far and away beyond what I expected.

2. McLaren

I said in preseason that I had faith McLaren would finish ahead of Mercedes in the constructor standings.

It sure seems like that will be easier than I thought, as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished 3rd and 4th at the Australian Grand Prix to get a huge chunk of points for the team.

McLaren is real quick, and if there’s any race where Red Bull or Max aren’t contending, we could see one of those two drivers pick up their first win.

1. Carlos Sainz

Carlos was absolutely fantastic in Bahrain, was forced to miss Saudi Arabia due to appendicitis, and came back to Australia with a dominating performance, far faster than his teammate Charles Leclerc or 2nd Red Bull driver Sergio Perez.

Sainz is driving the best he has in his entire career, and should find himself at a top seat in no time.

A return to the Red Bull program might just be on the cards…