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2017 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix: Things we learnt

Writer's picture: Andrew ZarbAndrew Zarb


The Formula 1 season began in Melbourne, and Sebastian Vettel was the winner (See the report: https://druzarb.wixsite.com/zarbtimes/single-post/2017/03/26/Formula-1-Sebastian-Vettel-wins-season-opening-2017-Australian-Grand-Prix). The race certainly didn't disappoint, and here we sum up the key talking points of the race.

Ferrari show that testing pace is genuine, could Mercedes era of dominance be ending?

Ferrari had looked very strong in pre-season testing, and several people were touting them as the favourites to end Mercedes' 3-year dominance of the hybrid era. Even Lewis Hamilton suggested that Ferrari were the favourites.

Friday's practice seemed to suggest otherwise, and many thought Mercedes were clearly just sandbagging in Barcelona. However, Ferrari, on the day that really mattered most (race day), proved that their pace in Barcelona was no fluke. Sebastian Vettel was the best driver without question.

Hamilton's decision to pit was probably at the right time the right call, and in the beginning it looked like he would overtake Vettel once again after the stop. However, he got held up by Verstappen, and just could not get past him. This enabled Vettel to get the jump on Hamilton.

But Ferrari were the fastest out there today without question (although Kimi Raikkonen struggled slightly in 4th place), and will certainly be challenging Mercedes. We could have the battle that many have been waiting for also in the drivers' championship: that of Lewis Hamilton versus Sebastian Vettel.

We have been in this position however, before, and last year Ferrari showed promise at the start of the season and arguably threw away two race victories through poor race strategy, however, they then tailed off later in the season. Therefore it's early days yet, but encouraging for Ferrari.

Alonso belies pace of McLaren by running in 10th place

McLaren-Honda had a shambolic pre-season testing which was plagued by reliability problems. This weekend in Australia saw an improvement, even though Stoffel Vandoorne encountered several reliability issues, in fact in qualifying he couldn't set a truly representative time. The car looks desperately off the pace, and the fact that Fernando Alonso made it to Q2 and qualified in 13th masks the true pace of the car, and shows what an extremely talented driver he is. So the fact that he ran in 10th place for most of the race is credit to Alonso and his superb talent behind the wheel, he is arguably one of, if not the most complete drivers on the grid. The technical gremilns he suffered at the end were extremely unfortunate on him, and he deserved better than that, and it was only at that point that Esteban Ocon of Force India in a Mercedes-powered car managed to overtake him.

The McLaren however, as said earlier is still way off the pace, and Alonso admitted this after the race:

“In terms of driving, I probably had one of my very best races today. I was able to drive the car at my maximum; I felt confident, and I enjoyed driving the car throughout the race – I was able to push.

“With such little degradation from this year’s tyres, it’s enjoyable to be in the cockpit again. However, that enjoyment is less for us, because we are not fighting at the front.

“Our car is obviously not very competitive at the moment, so being able to keep the car in the points was a little surprising. At the end of the race, I had a problem that prevented me from finishing the race.

“It’s disappointing to see we’re not ready to fight at the front – we need to quickly make some further improvements.”

Giovinazzi shows potential in debut

Antonio Giovinazzi was called up at the last minute to replace Sauber driver Pascal Wehrlein. He is currently Ferrari's 3rd driver, and last season finished runner-up in the GP2 series (which is now known as the Formula 2 Championship), and fared very well against Pierre Gasly, who won the Championship in the end (Gasly is a part of the Red Bull Junior Team).

In qualifying, he was rather unfortunate to be eliminated in Q1, although he made a slight mistake on his final lap in the session. However, he was ahead of Marcus Ericsson and set to qualify at that point, before Ericsson improved on his own time and eliminated Giovinazzi.

Giovinazzi managed to finish 12th place in the race. OK, his team-mate Ericsson got involved in a first-lap collision (which was not his fault) which compromised his race and ultimately forced him to retire, but Giovinazzi was absolutely faultless on his debut, making no mistakes, and this is a driver who only did Final Practice before qualifying, and some testing in the first week in Barcelona for Sauber, but still vastly inexperienced compared to team-mate Marcus Ericsson. Also, Giovinazzi finished ahead of McLaren driver Stoffel Vandoorne who did have a slight issue and lost some time, but again Giovinazzi can go home with his head held high.

Giovinazzi deserves a bigger opportunity in Formula 1, perhaps taking part in a few Friday practice sessions for Sauber, and then perhaps test for Ferrari in the Young Drivers' Tests of Bahrain and Hungary for this season, and today he showed that he deserves a full-time seat for 2018.


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