The big story
Like the previous three years in Formula One, 2024 has so far belonged to Max Verstappen, who has swept to victory in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to leave a fourth straight world title looking inevitable.
However, the third weekend of the campaign takes us to the setting of 2023’s most explosive event, where Verstappen survived a race which featured eight retirements and a record-breaking three red flags.
While similar levels of chaos are not expected when the F1 schedule returns to normality with Sunday’s race in Melbourne, might the high-speed track offer opportunities for others to challenge Verstappen’s dominance?
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Only Ferrari have so far looked capable of pushing the Red Bulls, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz securing one podium finish apiece this term. Sainz missed the Jeddah race after being diagnosed with appendicitis, with British teenager Oliver Bearman deputising and scoring a creditable seventh-placed finish.
Sainz is back for this weekend and finished third in Friday’s second practice session, which saw Leclerc edge out Verstappen by 0.381 seconds. Should there be the slightest slip-up from Red Bull, the Scuderia will be waiting to pounce.
Leclerc feels the team are in their best shape yet in 2024, as he bids to hand Ferrari a fourth win in six editions of the race.
“I would say that we are in a better position than the first two races,” he said after FP2. “However, Red Bull weren’t pushing yet, so we’ve got to wait and see where their potential is at.
“I think they are still ahead, but we might have our best shot this weekend from the beginning of the season.”
With Mercedes struggling and McLaren yet to live up to the pre-season hype, Ferrari will surely fancy themselves to be the best of the rest again down under, and preventing a third successive Red Bull one-two will be the goal.
The subplots
While Ferrari enjoyed Friday’s practice sessions, it was a difficult day for their future star Lewis Hamilton as he slumped to 18th in FP2.
The seven-time world champion again lashed out at Mercedes’ W15 car after finishing well adrift of team-mate George Russell in sixth, and a first race win since 2021 still looks some way off for the 39-year-old.
Elsewhere, it’s always worth looking out for the home hopefuls, and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri will be targeting more of the same after finishing fourth in Saudi Arabia last time out.
The 22-year-old looks the most likely driver to provide the Albert Park crowd with some joy, with fellow Aussie favourite Daniel Ricciardo yet to put a point on the board amid struggles with his RB in the first two races of the campaign.
Finally, with the midfield more crowded than ever, it’s a bad weekend to be a driver down, but that is exactly what has happened to Williams.
Alex Albon’s chassis suffered irreparable damage when he lost control and crashed at Turn Six in FP1 on Friday, having made the same mistake one turn later in the race proper in 2023.
Team-mate Logan Sargeant has paid for that error, with Williams opting to withdraw the American and field Albon in his car for the remainder of the weekend. He is now under huge pressure to repay their faith.
The track
The Australian Grand Prix has been held at the Albert Park circuit since 1996, only failing to take place during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
One of the most popular events on the calendar, the Melbourne race takes part on a 5.278-kilometre circuit and is one of the fastest on the F1 calendar, with average speeds hovering around 140 km/h.
The track features a high-speed section along Lakeside Drive and four DRS zones, and tyre provider Pirelli has gone one step softer in its allocation compared to last year’s event, with the softest C5 compound available for the first time this season.
What they said
Verstappen on his performance in Friday’s practice sessions:
“It was alright. I think Ferrari is quick, but from our side I think there are also a few more things we can finetune. There’s nothing crazy, nothing too worrying – I think we just need to finetune the car a little bit.”
Hamilton on his continued struggles with Mercedes’ W15 car:
“I obviously don’t feel great. We had one of the worst sessions I’ve probably had for a long time. P1 generally felt quite good, the car in P1 felt the best it’s ever felt, and it just got worse and worse.
“We made some big changes into P2 and it was tough. After that session, I feel the least confident I’ve ever felt with this car but there are positives from that P1 run that we did.”
Piastri on McLaren’s hopes at his home grand prix:
“I think we were a step closer to being close to Ferrari in Saudi but we still don’t quite have enough at the moment. I think for us, the fight is with Mercedes at the moment.
“Hopefully we can start challenging a bit more later in the year. As much as I don’t want to put people’s hopes down at home, any more than P5 is going to require some good fortune.”
When and how to watch
F1 fans in the UK will be able to watch every race of 2024 on Sky Sports F1 or via the Sky Go app. The full schedule for the remainder of the race weekend is as below.
Full schedule (all times UK)
Saturday 23rd March
01:30 – Practice Three
05:00 – Qualifying
Sunday 24th March
04:00 – Australian Grand Prix
Predictions
It’s impossible to predict anything other than a Verstappen win at present, but it would be no surprise if the Ferraris are closer to the Dutchman than ever before this weekend, perhaps to the detriment of Sergio Perez.
We’re backing at least one of Leclerc and Sainz – if not both – to sneak onto the podium, with Russell, Fernando Alonso and the McLaren pair the next-most likely challengers. Another difficult weekend could await Hamilton, though he did secure one of his two second-placed finishes of 2023 at this event.
