This weekend, we were witness to one of the best stories F1 has provided in a long time. Carlos Sainz, who only two weeks ago was recovering from appendicitis, won the race. Furthermore, Max Verstappen retired. Whilst most F1 fans would never wish bad luck on any driver, F1 needed a Verstappen retirement, if merely for reminding casual fans that it is possible for other people to win an F1 race. It’s not often I agree with Crofty, but when he declared that this was a result F1 needed, I completely concurred. A smile was on my face seeing a Ferrari 1-2.

All this almost distracted from the fact that I found the race boring.

Yes, even without Max Verstappen, a processional race with limited overtaking still occurred. In terms of track action, it appeared to have the least of the three races so far, the only racing highlights being Magnussen and Tsunoda making switchback moves at turn ten. This is because F1 has outgrown the Melbourne circuit. Narrow cars that can navigate the tight circuit of Melbourne have been replaced with wide cars that struggle to overtake here, which is a shame as the circuit provides one of the best vibes on the calendar.

Yet still, Sainz winning almost made this race appear to be a classic.

With little on track action throughout the middle of the race, attention was drawn to Sauber’s pit stops. Sauber appears to have decided to honor their gambling sponsorship by making the odds of a successful pit stop roughly the same as the odds of big winnings on a slot machine. The official reason behind their 30-50 second pit stops is that they have bought new wheel gun equipment for the year. Unfortunately, these wheel guns do not work properly with their car. If any other team did this they would become the laughing stock of F1, for failing on something so basic to success. However, as Sauber is already the most anonymous and mediocre, their pit stops just become another problem they have to solve. Still, the team should be embarrassed, especially when looking at statistics showing that they have already spent more time doing pit stops in three races than nine drivers did for the whole of last year.[1]

After a long race with little action, the most controversial moment suddenly happened on the last lap. George Russell crashed and this was partially caused by Alonso slowing down for turn six early, in order to get a better exit, likely to defend from Russell at the overtaking zone. Alonso’s actions, despite no contact with Russell, earned him a 20-second penalty, demoting him from 6^th to 8^th. The steward’s defense was that this was due to Alonso lifting, braking and downshifting a hundred meters earlier than on every other lap, before beginning to accelerate again, as by his own admission, he made a mistake.[2] The stewards argued that as this was inconsistent with Alonso’s previous laps, that it constituted driving ‘unnecessarily slowly… in a manner that could be deemed potentially dangerous.’[3] The stewards also argued that they were not taking the consequences of the incident into account.[4] The last point is obviously false. Hulkenberg moved under braking to cut off Alex Albon earlier in the race ‘in a manner that could be deemed potentially dangerous.’ Yet as Albon reacted and avoided Hulkenberg, no penalty was handed out. Additionally, back in Saudi, Magnussen backed up the entire midfield pack for multiple laps. If drivers didn’t react to Magnussen driving ‘unnecessarily slowly’ then there could have been a concertina effect where multiple cars crashed into each other. Yet this did not happen. So, Magnussen was allowed, in that case, to drive ‘unnecessarily slowly’. Presumably as Magnussen was lifting a hundred meters earlier for many laps, rather than just one, this made it safe? If Alonso had made the exact same move, yet Russell had reacted to it and slowed down accordingly, there would have been no penalty. Alonso’s move may have contributed to Russell’s accident, yet to punish a driver for the impact of their dirty air, itself a problem exemplified by F1’s wide cars, seems inconsistent and unfair.

So, F1 provided us with bad racing, long pit stops and awful stewarding. Yet still, the novelty of Verstappen winning made up for that. I just hope the next time Verstappen doesn’t win, there’s actually a good race to analyse, rather than merely a good result.

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[1] https://twitter.com/F1BigData/status/1771911908506865952

[2] https://twitter.com/fiadocsbot/status/1771822384309231731

[3] https://twitter.com/fiadocsbot/status/1771822384309231731 [Article 33.4]

[4] https://twitter.com/fiadocsbot/status/1771822384309231731