Howdy, MiniFans! Welcome to the 2025 season! We’re back to kicking off the year in Australia, but with a few changes. Five rookies and many seat changes later, we have very few teams remaining the same as in 2024. The weekened had been sunny so far, but Sunday decided to wake up under the rain, offering drivers the first taste of their cars in the wet.
As it was easily predictable, a rookie making a rookie mistake during the warm up lap made it so that he ended up spinning and hitting his rear wing into a wall, discarding him before the race even started. Once everything was taken care of and an extra formation lap done, the drivers lined up once again, ready to kick off.
Despite being full of spray, the start was decently clean thanks to the carefully measured movement by every driver. Verstappen managed to get past Piastri to try and catch up to Norris, but the peace and quiet wouldn’t last long. Halfway through the first lap, Doohan crashed, forcing a safety car out while the track was being cleaned up. The safety car didn’t stop the slippery track from taking another victim, this time Sainz, who relayed to his team he felt a massive torque surge, getting too much power too suddenly. The slippery surface, plus a lack of both track and tyre temperature, was causing mayhem in a field of cars that had yet to do more than half a lap combined under the green flag in half an hour.
The communication between drivers and teams kept on going as the cars followed the satefy car, with Antonelli being warned that Doohan’s crash came from barely touching the while lines, to which the driver commented he was already being careful with them. Seven laps in, the last few messages were exchanged before the safety car returned to the pitlane. The restart was led by Norris, who tried to get Verstappen by surprise, but the four-time world champion is a veteran in these matters, not letting the Brit get too far from him. However, he soon needed to keep a constant eye in his rearview mirrors, as Piastri was starting to get too close for comfort. The lower amount of spray and water on track made visibility better, but the uneveness was making it difficult for the daring ones to plan for a trial on slicks. Meanwhile, investigations over safety car infrigments were being announced, with a decent amount of drivers being closely looked at.
Barely eleven laps in, counting the handful behind the safety car, Norris was already straying from the drying racing line, finding puddles to keep his tyres as healthy as possible. One lap later, DRS was finally enabled, following the drying track, and the only local driver remaining took full advantage of it, closing the gap even further to Verstappen. Despite his efforts, the track wasn’t quite helping him out, making it difficult to leave the line without losing the car, but he didn’t have to worry about amyone coming from behind, as the top three had managed to open up a seven-second gap to Russell in fourth.
One more rookie mistake almost created another pause in the race, but Antoneli’s luck had him touching the grass and spinning in a corner with an asphalt runoff instead of walls and gravel. A similar mistake coming from Verstappen, who went wide and had to control his car in order not to lose it, allowed for Piastri to finally get past. The difficult track conditions were evident in moves such as Lawson on Ocon, which was unnecesarily hard despite the gap between their cars. Rain started coming down once again, leaving strategy teams to get every kind on plan ready, depending on driver feeling with worn down tyres and balancing it with their calculations.
Halfway through, Verstappen had finally dropped back from the McLarens and was driving in no man’s land, fifteen seconds away from the top two but almost nine in front of his first rival for the third step of the podium. McLaren, seeing that a 1-2 was the most likely option as long as they didn’t fumble it, instructed their drivers to keep positions, not wanting to chance a battle in not the greatest conditions. A little while later, they changed gears, informing their drivers that they were allowed to race each other as long as they followed the established rules of being careful and not crashing into each other.
It was a mostly unexpected crash, due to the driver involved, that kicked off another satefy car and a parace of cars running to the pitlane. Alonso’s accident forced the race to be slowed down once again while his car and the debris were taken care of, and there was a massive stampede into the pits for a set of slicks, either mediums or hards, to take advantage of the reduced time loss. In the same fashion of the earlier safery car period, teams took advantage of the quiet to let drivers know about a possible quick yet heavy hower in a few laps and discuss strategy with them, relaying every piece of weather information as they got it.
The restart made drivers ponder the risk vs reward of making a move, as trying for an overtake meant leaving the dry line. Despite this, the drivers were focused on the oncming rain, with Norris asking whether he should pit beforehand and McLaren calming him down. It wasn’t long until spins came around from the McLarens, leaving Piastri in the grass of the last turn. Norris barely made it into the pits as Piastri managed to reverse into the track before heading into the pitlane to switch to inters as well. Meanwhile. Verstappen was told to stay out at first, as only a few corners were actually wet, inheriting the read of the race, but he was soon called in as well. Both Ferraris, who had gotten up to first and second with Hamilton leading, were two of the few still on slicks. Once they finally got overtaken, they led the rest of the cars on dry tyres to the pitlane, losing positions due to the late call. However, it hadn’t been soon enough for Lawson, whose mediums couldn’t keep up with the water on the track, who spun and crashed into the wall, forcing yet another safety car.
Once the cars were finally settled and lined up behind the satefy car, Norris was back in the lead, closely followed by Verstappen and Russell, but also a very surprising Albon in fourth. This last restart was mostly clean, safe for a couple quickly controlled movements, and the top three quickly opened gaps among themselves, trying to safely make it to the end. Leclerc was a whole different story, as he didn’t hesitate to overtake Hamilton to start pressuring Gasly, who got overtaken by both Ferraris and Piastri, who managed to get himself back into the points. The battle for the win wasn’t over, though, as Verstappen managed to slot himself in DRS range, showing his front wing in Norris’ mirrors. Despite this, his engineer’s reassuring words seemed to work as he closed every tiny space to cross the finish line in first place.
The first race of the season may have started in the same way as 2024 finished, with McLaren being clearly in the lead and Verstappen outperforming his car to be the only one able to face them head to head, but the unstable weather brought a degree of craziness that added another layer to the race. The unpredictability of rain brought crashes, but also a ton of work to the strategy teams, who had to scramble to try and figure out the best way to get their drivers to the finish line in the best shape possible. Norris has taken the championship lead for the first time in his life, which begs the question of how he will deal with the extra pressure of being one of the favourites to the title in what is arguably the best car on the grid.
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