Leclerc was adamant yesterday that
Red Bull would be the quicker car, but it
was the Ferrari who topped both ses-
sions. Carlos Sainz was quickest in the
morning, with Leclerc topping the
timesheet in the afternoon to go quick-
est overall, with Verstappen in second.
The Dutchman had come up against
traffic but made some mistakes in what
had initially looked like a very quick lap.
He had also struggled with the balance
of the car in the morning, which was
tweaked for the afternoon, and he said
that while Red Bull were slightly behind
for now, he was confident they could
take a step forward over the weekend.
“We’re a tiny bit off Ferrari, but I do
think that we can maybe make it a little
bit closer,” he said. “But they are quick
again. In the long run everything
looked quite stable and quite nice, so
I’m happy about that. We definitely
made some good improvements today.”
There was not, however, any im-
provement from Mercedes. In fact, it
would appear that their porpoising,
which George Russell said accounted
for “99 per cent of their problems”, was
even worse than at the two previousraces. Porpoising refers to the way the
car bounces on the track as a result of
increasing and decreasing downforce.
“We’re porpoising pretty badly in
turn nine,” Russell said. “It’s probably
the most severe I’ve experienced. But I
think it’s just something that we’ll have
to deal with for the time being. We
believe that’s the fastest way around the
track, but maybe it’s not.
“We need to keep digging into the
data and understand. We’ve gone left,
right and centre with the set-up, and all
have resulted in a similar outcome, so
we need to try and get on top of things
and understand why.”
Mercedes have not made any up-
grades to the car this weekend, which is
to be expected at a long-haul race, with
the majority done back in Europe as
teams can easily bring in parts from
their factories.
Hamilton was in a jovial mood
yesterday, despite the uncomfortable
position in which he finds himself,
some 29 points adrift of Leclerc, already
and with no clear sign of when Mer-
cedes will be back fighting at the front.
The 37-year-old, who has nose andTwo years ago Formula One fans stood
at the gates to Albert Park in their
thousands on the Friday morning,
wondering why no one was letting
them in. With not a single wheel spun,
the Australian Grand Prix was
cancelled at the last minute because of
Covid cases in the paddock.
Now F1 has returned to Melbourne,
and fans have turned up in record num-
bers. More than 112,000 poured
through the turnstiles yesterday, a
record, up 33 per cent from the previous
high in 2019. Some 410,000 are expect-
ed over the weekend, which would
make it the biggest sporting event over
three days in Australian history.
The Australian Grand Prix is a firm
favourite on the calendar of fans and
drivers alike and its inclusion this year is
a welcome return, even if it is the third
race of the season, and a standalone,
which has led to a few grumbles about
the distance travelled for one race. The
hope is this will be looked at for next
year and become at least a back-to-back,
or, even better, returned to its more
traditional spot as the season opener.
In those intervening years since F1
was in Melbourne, much has changed.
Then Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes
were the dominant force. Now Red
Bull’s Max Verstappen is the world
champion and Ferrari have replaced
the Silver Arrows at the front of the
grid. It is now Charles Leclerc battling
Verstappen for the championship and
this weekend their contest continues
around the newly configured track.
The two 24-year-olds, separated in
age by only 16 days, with Verstappen
the elder, have gone wheel to wheel in
the opening two races of this season,
with thrilling and hard but fair racing,
and that looks set to be the case here.
Hamilton puts on brave
face from the slow lane
18 1GS Saturday April 9 2022 | the times
Sport Formula One
ear piercings, was dismissive of F1’s
reminder that jewellery is not allowed
to be worn when driving. “I have got
certain piercings that I can’t just take
out and that not many people know of,”
the seven-times world champion said,
while laughing.
“I’m kidding,” he added before asking
Verstappen if he still had a nipple pierc-
ing, to the amusement of all the drivers
in the press conference with him,
including the Dutchman.
Back on track, however, it was no
laughing matter. “It’s just nothing we
change on the car makes a difference at
the moment,” Hamilton said, shortly
after stepping out of the car. “You’re
getting very optimistic, and then you
make changes, and then it doesn’t seem
to be wanting to improve.”
Russell and Hamilton never troubled
the top half of the timesheets, with
Russell 11th and Hamilton 13th, more
than a second down on Leclerc.
“There’s not a lot we can do,” Hamil-
ton said. “You’re trying to push, you’re
trying to catch [up] and even when
you do a decent lap, it’s 1.2 seconds
down.”
The Albert Park track was a
notoriously difficult place to
overtake, so the organisers have
made seven changes to the layout,
by widening certain corners, tight-
ening others, removing some
corners altogether and add-
ing a fourth DRS zone. It is
a series of changes that will
increase the average
speed and lower the lap
time by five seconds.
They have also resur-
faced the track for the
first time since F1 arrived
in Melbourne in 1996.
Verstappen said: “I
think the track grip is
quite nice. The bumps
definitely improved, it’s
smoother. But it actual-
ly makes the track nicer
as well because you can
attack the corners a bit bet-
ter. I enjoyed my laps today.”Rebecca
Clancy
Motor Racing
Correspondent,
Melbourne
Race 3 Australia,
Melbourne Grand
Prix Circuit
Tomorrow
TV Live on Sky Sports F1/ Main Event at 5.55am
Race starts 6am
Highlights Channel 4, 3.55pm1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910Drivers Team PointsConstructors
1 2 3 4 5 6PointsC Leclerc Ferrari 45
C Sainz Ferrari 33
M Verstappen Red Bull 25
G Russell Mercedes 22
L Hamilton Mercedes 16
E Ocon Alpine 14
S Perez Red Bull 12
K Magnussen Haas Ferrari 12
V Bottas Alfa Romeo 8
L Norris McLaren 6Ferrari 78
Mercedes 38
Red Bull 37
Alpine 16
Haas Ferrari 12
Alfa Romeo 9DRS zone>>>Laps 58
Circuit length 5.303km
Race distance 307.574km
Lap record M Schumacher
(2004) 1 min 24.125secThe struggle
continued for
Hamilton, below,
in Melbourne as
he finished 13th
in practice