Motorsport: Motor racing-Australian Grand Prix team by team

(Reuters) – Team by team review of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne’s Albert Park, round three of the 24-race season (listed in their current championship order):

RED BULL (Sergio Perez 5, Max Verstappen retired)

Verstappen started on pole but lasted three laps before a stuck right rear brake forced his first mechanical retirement for two years (Australia 2022), ending his bid for a 10th win in a row and run of 43 successive finishes. The triple champion retained the overall lead but saw it slashed to four points over Ferrari’s Leclerc. Perez started sixth after a three place grid penalty for impeding and lost downforce due to damage after passing Alonso. The defeat ended Red Bull’s bid for a hat-trick of one-two finishes and was the team’s first since Singapore last September.

FERRARI (Carlos Sainz 1, Charles Leclerc 2)

Sainz took his third career win and only two weeks after surgery to remove his appendix forced him to miss the Saudi Arabian GP. He is the first driver to win the race after a medical absence since Gerhard Berger in 1997. It was also his first win not from pole and he remains the only driver to beat Red Bull since 2022. He started on the front row and took the lead on lap two, pitted on laps 16 and 41 and was voted Driver of the Day. Leclerc started fourth, got ahead of Norris with a lap nine pitstop to undercut the McLaren driver and set the fastest lap of the race.

MCLAREN (Lando Norris 3, Oscar Piastri 4)

Norris felt he could have finished second. The podium was his 14th, a record by a driver without a win, and McLaren’s first of the season. He pitted on laps 14 and 40. Piastri pitted on laps nine and 39, getting ahead of Norris briefly but obeying team orders to hand back position on lap 29 so his team mate could chase Leclerc on fresher tyres, a move that ended the local driver’s hopes of a home podium.

MERCEDES (George Russell and Lewis Hamilton retired)

Mercedes suffered their first double non-finish since 2018. Hamilton started 11th and retired with a sudden power unit failure after pitting on lap seven and gaining positions by starting on the soft tyre. Russell, seventh on the grid, crashed on the penultimate lap and triggered a virtual safety car after Alonso braked earlier than expected ahead of him while the Briton was fighting for sixth place.

ASTON MARTIN (Lance Stroll 6, Fernando Alonso 8)

Alonso finished sixth but was hit with a 20 second post-race penalty and three penalty points for potentially dangerous driving in the Russell incident. That dropped him to eighth and promoted Stroll to sixth. The penalty also dropped Aston Martin to fourth from third in the constructors’ standings.

RB (Yuki Tsunoda 7, Daniel Ricciardo 12)

Tsunoda scored RB’s first points of the season, starting and finishing eighth on track but moving up one place after Alonso’s penalty. Ricciardo started 18th on the grid, pitted early and fought back to 12th.

HAAS (Nico Hulkenberg 9, Kevin Magnussen 10)

Hulkenberg scored points for the second race in a row, after 10th in Saudi Arabia, and from 16th on the grid with a long first stint on the hard tyres before pitting during the virtual safety car on lap 17. He pitted again on lap 36. Magnussen opened his account for the season after lining up 14th, passing Albon for 11th on his final stint with both Haas drivers benefiting from Russell’s crash. The double points finish was the team’s first since Austria 2022.

WILLIAMS (Alex Albon 11, Logan Sargeant did not race)

Sargeant did not race after the team handed his car to Albon because they had no spare to give the Thai after he wrecked his in practice. Albon qualified 12th and gained a place thanks to Russell’s crash. He lacked pace from early on and suffered tyre graining, pitting early to try and stay in with a chance.

SAUBER (Valtteri Bottas 14, Guanyu Zhou 15)

Zhou had to start from the pitlane after Sauber made changes to his car overnight. He then suffered gearbox problems during the race, unable to select gears when he entered the pits and stalling. Bottas had been ahead of the Haas drivers but lost 28 seconds in his pitstop when a wheelnut fell out of the gun and rolled away, a failure that cost the team a 5,000 euros fine.

ALPINE (Pierre Gasly 13, Esteban Ocon 16)

Still no points for Alpine. Ocon started 15th, Gasly 17th. Ocon had to make an extra stop to remove a visor tear-off strip that became stuck in a rear brake duct. He might have scored without that.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Pritha Sarkar)