Ferrari star driver Charles Leclerc has won the Australian Grand Prix making it his second win of the season so far. He drove incredibly the whole weekend, becoming the first Ferrari driver since Fernando Alonso in 2010 to have a Grand Slam which means winning from pole position, leading every lap, and setting the fastest lap in a Grand Prix.
This was the first Australian Grand Prix in two years, since it couldn’t be held because of Covid-19 restrictions. The excitement for the sport’s comeback showed as an unbelievable amount of people showed up, with many reports saying that approximately 420,000 people were present throughout the weekend making it one of the most popular sporting weekends in Australian history.
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Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz didn’t have the best of weekends. The Spanish driver was very unlucky in qualifying as due to a mistake in his final lap and implications from red flags he only managed to qualify in 9th place whilst his teammate was in pole position. It only got worse for Carlos, as on Sunday he dropped down from 9th to 14th and was forced to retire from the race due to him losing traction.
Disaster also struck for current World Champion Max Verstappen. The Dutchman was in second place for most of the race trying to catchup to the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc when in the 39th lap he had to stop the engine, telling race engineers on the team radio “I smell some weird fluid.”
The big winners of the weekend had to be Mercedes and McLaren. The two teams have endured a difficult start to the season but had a very pleasant Australian Grand Prix with Mercedes duo George Russel and Lewis Hamilton finishing in 3rd and 4th whilst McLaren’s Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo finished the race in 5th and 6th. This was the first time in the season that McLaren had both drivers in the points.
Surprisingly Williams driver Alex Albon also managed to get a point despite the fact he started the race from 20th place due to not showing enough fuel after qualifying. The driver and engineers played the risky game of not pitting until the last lap but to the surprise of many the strategy worked with Albon crossing the line in 10th place.
This now means that Charles Leclerc is still first in the standings with 71 points over second place George Russel who has 37. On the constructor side of things Ferrari also have a big lead with them having 104 points compared to the 64 of Mercedes and the 55 of Red Bull who due to their unreliable cars have missed out on crucial points.
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