Russell warns Mercedes need to raise their game despite Australian GP 1-2

Dubai: Heading into the new Formula 1 season’s opening act in Melbourne on Sunday, there were only three certainties — that Mercedes would be the team to beat, there would be a plethora of overtakes and Aston Martin would not finish the race.

As it turned out, George Russell and Kimi Antonelli did finish on the top two steps of the podium — as expected after they finished 1-2 in qualifying on Saturday — in a race that had an astonishing 120 overtakes, while the Aston Martin duo of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll retired early as predicted.

What did come as a surprise, though, was how thrilling the race eventually turned out to be.

Under the new rules, half of every power unit now is a battery and drivers had to recharge while braking or by lifting off the throttle to avoid it draining. The challenge of Melbourne’s 58-lap Albert Park circuit was its long sweeping straights, which deplete batteries, and relatively few twisty turns to brake and charge it up again.

The first casualty, even before the race began, was home hero Oscar Piastri. The McLaren driver, who qualified fifth fastest, hit the kerb at Turn 4 and spun into the concrete barriers. It left his car with the front right wheel hanging off and substantial bodywork damage, ending his hopes.

Then as the five lights went out at Albert Park, it was the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc on medium tyres who got the jump on the pole-sitter, with the Monegasque, starting fourth on the grid, surging past Russell and Antonelli.

Lewis Hamilton also had a flying start for Ferrari and surged to third, ahead of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar.

Russell immediately hit back, reclaiming the lead on lap two before Leclerc responded a lap later to go first again as they and Hamilton began pulling clear.

It morphed into a thrilling wheel-to-wheel battle at the front, with the lead changing hands three times on lap eight as Russell and Leclerc fought for supremacy.

The virtual safety car came out on lap 12 when Hadjar’s car stopped due to mechanical failure with Russell and Antonelli pitting and coming back on hards.

And that is where the race was won and lost.

The Ferraris stayed out even as Hamilton suggested at least one of the drivers should have pitted. The virtual safety car was again deployed when Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas retired with Russell eight seconds behind the Scuderia when they got going again.

With his tyres starting to wear, Leclerc pitted on lap 26, but Hamilton stayed out and was passed by Russell before coming in.

Russell radioed that he thought a one-stop race was viable and he began pulling clear, with Antonelli second.

There was no way back for the Ferraris, who were 15 seconds behind and barely made a dent in the Mercedes advantage in the second half of the race.

And amid all the drama up front, Max Verstappen showed what Red Bull are capable of by scything his way through the field from 20th to finish 6th behind McLaren’s Lando Norris in 5th, eventually earning him the Driver of the Day and the fastest lap.

Rookie Arvid Lindblad finished eighth in his Racing Bull, behind Haas’ Ollie Bearman with Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly rounding out the top 10.

Despite the jubilation of his sixth race win, Russell cautioned that Mercedes still needed to raise their game.

“It just feels like another race win, to be honest. I mean, it’s race one into a very long season,” he said.

“Of course I want to fight for race wins week in, week out, but we’re all here now to fight for a world championship, and that’s what we’ve been working so hard towards.

“And if we want to do that, we still need to raise our game because there were a lot of areas today that we underachieved, mainly around the race start and having the battery in the right place.

“Qualifying was a real surprise for us and I think we saw today that Ferrari are definitely there in the mix,” he added.

Worse start

Antonelli, who had an even worse start than Russell, sliding to seventh from second, said: “The start was poor, very poor, and I just lost a lot of places and found myself having to chase.

“But the car was very strong and it was good fun at the end. Team did an incredible job.”

Leclerc, while admitting he was positively surprised by Ferrari’s pace, insisted that he did not rue the decisions taken under the VSC.

“Very pleased is maybe a big word, but I am positively surprised, for sure, after qualifying yesterday,” said Leclerc.

As for not being called in to pit under the VSC, he added: “I don’t regret it. It was a conscious choice.”

The season moves to China next weekend before Japan. Rounds four and five are scheduled for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia but are under threat given the war in Iran with a decision expected later this month.