Lando Norris secured victory at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, navigating intense late pressure from Max Verstappen and a tumultuous race filled with rain, safety cars, and evolving pit strategies to seize the early championship lead.
The race, hindered by a wet track, turned into a battle of attrition and sky-watching with six retirements occurring amid bouts of falling rain. Fernando Alonso’s spin into the barriers on lap 34, which brought out the safety car, interrupted a lengthy run on intermediate tires, allowing the two McLaren drivers to pull away from Verstappen and the rest of the field.
However, Oscar Piastri’s bid for a home win was spoiled a few laps later when he went off as the rain intensified again. Over the following laps, Norris emerged from the resulting flurry of pit stops and spinning cars with the lead and never looked back.
Further down the grid, Lewis Hamilton finished 10th in his first race with Ferrari, two places behind teammate Charles Leclerc. It was a good day in the points for Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg and Williams’ Alex Albon, while Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli also secured a terrific 12-point debut with a fourth-place finish. Very few drivers got through the day without at least a spin or a mistake.
The Athletic’s experts Luke Smith (from Melbourne) and Madeline Coleman break down the early-season battle at Albert Park.
Norris kept his head for a perfect start to F1 2025
Norris faced a lot of criticism for his handling of pressure through races last year, particularly when racing Verstappen. But on Sunday, he answered back in style.
The Briton had this race under complete control from start to finish despite rain, safety cars and pressure from both Verstappen and teammate Piastri, kicking off what he hopes to be a championship year in style.
Verstappen passed Piastri on the first lap and kept up with Norris through the opening stages, only for his tires to fade and cause him to make a mistake, dropping to P3 and falling over 15 seconds behind. McLaren briefly imposed team orders on its drivers, despite Piastri feeling he was quicker, before the safety car neutralized the race and reintroduced Verstappen as a threat.
Norris and Piastri quickly pulled ahead on the restart before the short, sharp rain shower sent both careering wide at Turn 12 through the gravel. Norris kept out of the wall and made it into the pits for intermediates, but Piastri got stuck in the grass at the final chicane and tumbled out of the points as a result. He got going again to huge cheers from the crowd, leaving him to finish ninth, but it was a heartbreaking way to his home race weekend. The wait for an Australian to finish on the podium at home continues.
Having Verstappen, a wet-weather specialist, on his tail for the six-lap sprint to the line was a lot of pressure on Norris, with the gap reducing to a few tenths of a second with two laps to go. Verstappen never got close enough to try to lunge for position, Norris crossing the line eight-tenths of a second ahead.
An impressive win that should send an early statement for Norris and his F1 title aspirations this year.
Luke Smith
Hamilton’s Ferrari debut a missed chance
Finishing 10th is hardly the fairytale debut that Hamilton would have envisaged upon securing his dream switch to Ferrari, but the seven-time world champion always knew the early races would be about learning.
Hamilton said on Saturday after qualifying he didn’t even know where the wet setup switches were on his steering wheel, making the rain an extra headache. He lost a bit of ground at Turn 1 after getting close with teammate Leclerc and backing out, and spent the opening half of the race in P8, toiling behind Albon’s Williams.
There were a number of radio exchanges between Hamilton and his engineer, Riccardo Adami, about car settings to try, with Hamilton telling Adami at one point not to repeat everything. Adami misheard him and repeated his instruction. Hamilton eventually told Adami to leave him to it a bit more.
The late rain shower presented an opportunity for Ferrari, who opted to keep Hamilton out while others dived in for intermediates. He briefly rose to lead the race, only to then realize not coming in had been a mistake. Hamilton eventually pitted three laps later than Norris, causing him to fall to ninth. “I thought you said it wasn’t going to rain much,” Hamilton said. “Just missed a big opportunity there.”
There was another close moment with Leclerc on the second restart, with the Monegasque driver getting ahead, and while both could pass Pierre Gasly after a mistake, the recovering Piastri ultimately picked off Hamilton on the final lap. It left the Briton with only a single point to show for his Ferrari debut.
It was a big day of learning for Hamilton, whose disappointment was audible on the radio after the race. Had they come in early, a decent haul of points was within reach, potentially a top five. Instead, it’ll be about coming back stronger in China.
Luke Smith
Antonelli stars after a rough day for the rookies
The rookies struggled throughout the weekend and Sunday’s conditions were far from ideal.
Heading into race day, Ollie Bearman had limited running after wrecking twice in practice and both he and Liam Lawson started from the pit lane.
Isack Hadjar, who qualified the highest among the rookies, crashed on the formation lap, spinning into the wall at Turn 2 and breaking the rear wing.
The aborted start meant the teams needed to go through their start procedures again for another race start, and the second try wasn’t clean, either. Jack Doohan, who made his race debut in Abu Dhabi 2024, crashed on the opening lap, triggering a safety car.
The cars soon fell into a rhythm, and it allowed the younger drivers to show some of their skill. Antonelli eventually executed an overtake on Nico Hülkenberg, but he undid the work when he spun shortly after, managing to keep it out of the wall. The Mercedes driver, though, made quick work to steadily navigate his way up the field. He passed Hülkenberg again and Lance Stroll, hovering just outside of points by lap 27.
All was relatively quiet until around lap 44 with rain looming. Two more rookies ended up wrecking at different points of the track, Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto, at around lap 48, triggering a safety car. Only Bearman and Antonelli remained.
None of the rookies had a clean race, which is to be expected, but Antonelli’s rise from P16 to P4 in the mixed conditions is an impressive feat for the 18-year-old’s F1 debut.
Madeline Coleman
Williams leads ‘best of the rest’ battle
During preseason testing in Bahrain last month, Racing Bulls largely flew under the radar, neither Hadjar nor Yuki Tsunoda put together a performance that jumped out. Alpine appeared to be the strongest midfield team, with Albon calling the team Williams’ “direct rival” ahead of the Australian GP.
But after this weekend, Williams holds the title of ‘best of the rest,’ though that battle will be tighter as the season unfolds.
All three teams only had one driver competing for the entire race, after Hadjar crashed on the formation lap, Doohan wrecked on the opening lap, and Carlos Sainz lost the car and ended up in the wall behind the safety car (triggered by Doohan’s crash).
Racing Bulls’ Tsunoda qualified P5 on Saturday. Come Sunday, he initially stayed out of trouble as others wrecked and only lost a position to George Russell, sitting sixth by lap 38. Behind him at that time was Albon, but the safety car triggered by Lawson and Bortoleto’s separate crashes led to a major shakeup in the order, with Tsunoda dropping outside of points and Albon sitting fifth.
Albon’s fifth-place finish is a massive moment for Williams, considering where the team was a year ago. Given how few points positions will be up for grabs for the midfield teams and that the conditions we saw in Melbourne are rare, teams like Williams need to take advantage of such moments. Albon’s clean driving came at the right time.
Madeline Coleman
Provisional race results
- Lando Norris, McLaren (25 points)
- Max Verstappen, Red Bull (18 points)
- George Russell, Mercedes (15 points)
- Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes (12 points)
- Alex Albon, Williams (10 points)
- Lance Stroll, Aston Martin (8 points)
- Nico Hülkenberg, Sauber (6 points)
- Charles Leclerc, Ferrari (4 points)
- Oscar Piastri, McLaren (2 points)
- Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari (1 point)
- Pierre Gasly, Alpine
- Yuki Tsunoda, Racing Bulls
- Esteban Ocon, Haas
- Oliver Bearman, Haas
DNF
- Liam Lawson, Red Bull (46 laps)
- Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber (45 laps)
- Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin (32 laps)
- Carlos Sainz, Williams (0 laps)
- Jack Doohan, Alpine (0 laps)
- Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls (0 laps)
(Top photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images)
