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Bell and Byron clearly had the two fastest cars throughout Sunday’s 68-lap race on the 3.41-mile, 20-turn road course but the two ended up on slightly different pit strategies.Bell and his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team adapted a two-stop strategy in the race and the benefit was Bell ended up one of last cars to pit.That left Bell with slightly fresher tires in his effort to catch Byron once the …Keep reading
Byron, who was fastest in practice on Saturday and won the pole, dominated Sunday’s race, leading five times for 42 of the 68 laps on his way to his second win of the 2024 season.Byron lost the lead at the start of the final stage to Ross Chastain, ran him back down to reclaim in, lost it again during a final round of green flag pit stops but cycled back out front with 17 laps remaining.He held …Keep reading
In the closing laps of the Melbourne race, Alonso was left battling Russell for sixth place.Fearing how vulnerable he would be through Albert Park’s DRS zones, Alonso claimed he tried to brake earlier for Turn 6 on the penultimate lap so he could carry more speed onto the following straight.Mercedes man Russell was caught out by his manoeuvre and crashed off in the Aston Martin’s dirty air, with …Keep reading
Lewis Hamilton parked up with a power unit failure, the cause of which is yet to be determined, on lap 15 of a race won by Carlos Sainz after Max Verstappen retired with an early brake fire.Meanwhile, George Russell wiped out two laps from the flag – believing his car to be unsettled by Fernando Alonso immediately ahead. The Spaniard was eventually penalised by 20 seconds for changing his driving …Keep reading
Polesitter Verstappen reported a stuck brake from the start of the Melbourne race and after the issue made him lose the lead to Sainz on lap 2, the Dutchman’s right rear brake finally gave up on lap 4, forcing him to retire.But Ferrari’s race performance and the way it handled front tyre graining, which had already looked promising in practice, has prompted Perez to say that Sainz would have …Keep reading
After wheelnut issues caused lengthy stops for Valtteri Bottas in Bahrain and Zhou Guanyu in Jeddah, the team made what it called “containment” modifications for Melbourne, with the aim of reducing the risk of further issues.However, in Melbourne, Bottas suffered another problem that cost him 28 seconds and robbed him of a shot at scoring points, as he was running ahead of both Haas drivers at the …Keep reading
Mercedes racer Russell wiped out from seventh place two laps from the chequered flag in Melbourne while chasing after the Aston Martin driver. He lost the rear axle through Turn 6 to skate over the gravel, and hit the Turn 7 wall before bouncing back into the middle of the circuit.This left the 58-lap contest to end under virtual safety car conditions as Carlos Sainz led Charles Leclerc for a …Keep reading
As the Red Bull driver suffered a brake problem at the start of the race, his Ferrari rival took control early on and never relinquished it, scoring his first win since last year’s Singapore GP.Charles Leclerc settled for second as Ferrari grabbed its first one-two finish of the year, with McLaren’s Lando Norris completing the podium ahead of Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez, who in Verstappen’s …Keep reading
The Briton had qualified ahead of Leclerc and remained ahead during the opening phase of the race, but fell behind during the opening pit phase as the Monegasque and Norris’ McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri conducted earlier pitstops to claim the undercut. In an effort to chase Leclerc, McLaren conducted a swap between Norris and Piastri as the Australian’s pace was slower, and Norris started to …Keep reading
Norris and Piastri finished third and fourth behind Ferrari duo Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc in Melbourne after McLaren asked Piastri before halfway to swap positions with Norris.But while the Australian rued missing out on a podium in front of his home crowd, he conceded the swap was fair because had been allowed to undercut his team-mate earlier in the race, and thereafter Norris was faster …Keep reading