Australian Grand Prix Takeaways: It's Verstappen vs McLaren Again
F1 NewsWednesday, 19 March 2025 at 07:30
The 2025 Australian Grand Prix delivered a great spectacle, promising an intense championship fight between defending Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen and defending constructors' champions, McLaren.
I say Verstappen vs. McLaren because once again, the Dutchman finds himself fighting for his fifth consecutive drivers' crown with one hand tied behind his back while—despite Lando Norris beating Oscar Piastri down under—we are yet to find out which of the McLaren drivers will lead their charge in 2025.
McLaren have shown in 2024 that they cannot manage two #1 drivers, and signing Piastri on a long-term contract is hardly going to convince the Aussie to act as a wingman to Norris.
We went into F1's opening weekend in 2025 with a lot of anticipation as Lewis Hamilton made his Ferrari debut, Carlos Sainz made his Williams debut, and five and a half rookies started their lives in the top flight.
While it was clear McLaren had the edge from pre-season testing and practice in Melbourne, the chasing pack was not really clear in terms of how Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes stack up.
With the gap McLaren had over their rivals in qualifying, around four tenths, we have to be "grateful" that the weather delivered a curveball or the Papaya cars would have run away with it on Sunday.
So here we are. Takeaways are back, and we start with the 2025 Australian Grand Prix.
McLaren start 2025 in perfect fashion
McLaren picked up from where they left off in 2024, especially with the car, as the MCL39 seems to be a worthy successor to the car that delivered the team's first constructors' title since 1998 last season.
With the 2025 season being the final under the current regulations, splitting the development between the 2025 and 2026 cars will be a delicate balance, and McLaren having such an advantage will prove beneficial in their preparation for 2026.
George Russell even claimed that such is the gap between McLaren and their rivals that they can start focusing on developing their 2026 car from now. Thankfully, we know they cannot.
Verstappen won seven of the first ten races in 2024, which proved later on to be key in him securing his fourth F1 title, so Norris winning from the get-go this year will put more pressure on the Red Bull ace as he seeks to emulate the great Michael Schumacher by winning five titles in a row.
On the other hand, Norris showed strong mental resilience in what was a chaotic race in Melbourne and soaked up the pressure beautifully from Verstappen in the final laps to take his first win of the season.
He has shown that he had the upper hand over Piastri, who was behind him in qualifying, and while both risked throwing their races away spinning when the rain came back, it was the Australian who came off worse, dropping down the order and recovering to ninth.
It will be interesting to see how Piastri responds in China this weekend and how the McLaren driver hierarchy develops in 2025 as the team look to avoid their driver-managing mistakes from 2024, as their performance on this front in Melbourne was not very assertive.
But for now, a job well done for McLaren and Lando.
A new season but the same old Red Bull problem
We all read about how Red Bull Racing went down a development path in 2024 that saw the car become harder to drive with only Verstappen being able to wring its neck, while poor Sergio Perez just went off the boil and was eventually fired.
At one point, the 2024 Italian Grand Prix, I believe, the RB20 was such a handful even for Verstappen, and the Bulls registered their worst result of the season. After that, things improved a bit.
From pre-season testing, it was clear the RB21 was not the car Verstappen was hoping the team would put at his disposal as he looks to defend his title against an on-form McLaren. When he said the RB21 could not be worse than the RB20, that spoke volumes...
From the start of the 2025 Australian Grand Prix weekend, it was clear that Red Bull had issues to solve while Ferrari and Mercedes showed more promise early on, but the Verstappen factor meant he was able to challenge the McLarens, both in qualifying and the race.
But the four-time F1 champion was fighting with a blunt knife. In the race, and despite the wet conditions, he could only keep up with the McLarens for a short while before his tyres went off the cliff and he started dropping back.
Once again, Verstappen flattered the RB21, which I dare say is one second off the pace of McLaren's MCL39, with the Dutchman making the difference. Just look at how poor Liam Lawson's debut weekend with Red Bull unraveled.
I am worried that Red Bull will now destroy the Kiwi's career, just like they did with Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, and also Checo Perez.
No driver is going to achieve results in a car that Verstappen has to work with all his talent to keep in check, and that is why, and I am not defending Perez here, Lawson will struggle like his predecessor.
A fast F1 car is hard to drive, especially one that had the Adrian Newey touch in its DNA. Despite the design genius leaving for Aston Martin, the RB21 is another car in a line of ground effect Red Bull cars that started life on Newey's drawing board.
Imagine how tough it would be to drive a Newey car that was developed in a manner that makes only Verstappen able to deal with. I feel for poor Lawson.
Red Bull should change their car development philosophy and not their drivers, unless they can find another Max.
Hamilton starts life at Ferrari
Everyone was looking forward to Lewis starting his life as a Ferrari driver after the hype that surrounded him and the Italian team since his move to Maranello was announced early in 2024, which went into overdrive when he started work with them in January.
However, the start of Hamilton's career in Red was tougher than even he may have anticipated, as he still appeared out of sync with the car, the procedures, the controls, and even his race engineer, Ricciardo Adami.
That Hamilton was outqualified by Charles Leclerc was expected given the Monegasque's qualifying prowess, not to mention that he has been embedded within the team since 2019. What was interesting, though, was Leclerc not shying off from banging wheels with his new teammate on a couple of occasions during the Grand Prix, trying to show him who is boss.
But worryingly, Hamilton seemed to struggle in his new Italian surroundings after spending 12 years with Mercedes, an English team, and his communication with his engineer magnified that.
He seemed restless and irritated over the radio and was trying to be overly polite with his engineer while such a situation at Mercedes would've seen him addressing Peter Bonnington, or Bono, his Mercedes engineer, in a much sterner manner.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Lewis has to be impolite to Adami, but what we heard over the #44 Ferrari radio in Melbourne showed that the Briton is still learning the limits, not only with his new car but with the whole team.
Some might label Hamilton's start with Ferrari as disappointing, and it is understandable when compared to Fernando Alonso's and Sebastian Vettel's. The first won on debut with them (Bahrain 2010), and the second won in his second race (Malaysia 2015), but let's relax a bit and give Lewis some time.
After all, the pressure he is under is multiplied when you compare that with Alonso and Vettel.
The rookies' watch
Lawson might not be considered a rookie as he had a few races under his belt before jumping into a Red Bull, but that job is so daunting that I accounted for him along with the other rookies, hence my "five and a half" reference earlier, but I said what needed to be said about Lawson in the Red Bull Takeaway.
Aside from Lawson, Kimi Antonelli, Isack Hadjar, Oliver Bearman, Gabriel Bortoleto, and Jack Doohan all started their full-time F1 careers in the 2025 Australian Grand Prix.
Let's go through them one by one. Antonelli was impressive in his Mercedes debut despite being knocked out of Q1 in qualifying as Bortoleto progressed to Q2 in a Sauber.
The young Italian who was fast-tracked into F1, skipping Formula 3, and after one season in Formula 2, proved that Toto Wolff's gamble has paid off... For now.
Hadjar was superb in qualifying and just missed out in Q3, but his formation lap crash was devastating, especially when Helmut Marko is the one evaluating your performance. Hopefully Anthony Hamilton's kind words will help the Racing Bulls rookie bounce back this weekend in China.
Bearman gave Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu a taste of what James Vowles felt in 2024 with Logan Sargeant and somehow Franco Colapinto towards the end.
A crash in FP1 and being beached in FP3 is hardly the image you would like to have entrenched in your team's conscience, but Bearman kept it clean in the race and should be commended for his mental fortitude to recover from such a shaky start.
Bortoleto showed his F2 champion credentials, dragging his hapless Sauber into Q2 and outqualifying his more experienced teammate, Nico Hülkenberg, who was knocked out in Q1.
But then in the race, the Brazilian paid the price of experience, and you cannot take that against him, given his mentor Fernando Alonso ended his race in the barriers as well.
Doohan also had a debut to forget, especially since it was his home race as he crashed on the opening lap under the watchful eyes of Flavio Briatore, who seems to be applying the same driver management strategy as Red Bull and Marko.
With Colapinto waiting in the wings, Doohan could've done without extra pressure.
Australian Grand Prix Quick Hits
- The curse of Australian drivers at their home race was not broken last Sunday in Melbourne with how the races of Piastri and Doohan panned out. Weird.
- The rookies that crashed should not be hard on themselves, given that even the most experienced of drivers, Alonso and Sainz, suffered the same fate, not to mention hairy moments for others: Verstappen, Norris, and Piastri, to mention a few.
- Mercedes did not show they were McLaren challengers but managed to capitalize on mixed conditions to get Russell on the podium and Antonelli in fourth.
- Ferrari's form was a disappointment given how promisingly they started their weekend in Melbourne.
- A shoutout for Williams on their improvement and for Alex Albon on the race he delivered for his team.
- The same applies to Nico Hülkenberg and Lance Stroll.
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