Stop, run! – Newspaper Kommersant No. 56 (7501) dated 04/03/2023

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen won the second race of the season, taking the lead at the Australian Grand Prix for the first time in his career. The predictable victory of the two-time world champion turned out to be nervous, as was the race itself, which was interrupted three times by red flags. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) finished second. The third, for the third time in a row, is Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), who lost everything in all this turmoil, but then happily returned everything.

Max Verstappen, despite the presence of two titles in the asset, has never won in Australia. And the entire Red Bull team had only one Australian triumph – back in 2011, when Sebastian Vettel reigned in Formula 1. But this time the bulls went to Melbourne with the feeling that the victory was not going anywhere. The first two stages of the championship, in which Red Bull marked with doubles, showed that the team had no real competitors, so the only thing left was to fix the inevitable.

However, the team failed to complete the third double – Sergio Perez, who made a mistake in qualifying, was forced to start from the pit lane. With all due respect to the Mexican, even at Red Bull, he was unable to climb into the top 2. Especially since the Mercedes racers suddenly arrived in Melbourne quickly. Lewis Hamilton in recent weeks only did what he admired the technical level of Red Bull, claiming that he had never seen such a dominant car (about the years when he himself was leaving his pursuers from the very first meters, he preferred not to remember). But in qualifying, both he and George Russell (Hamilton and Russell took third and second places) gave reason to say that the advantage of the “bulls” may not be so crushing. And then at the start, both Mercedes bypassed Verstappen, as if confirming suspicions.

True, Verstappen, having waited a little, returned everything as it was, making it clear that the rivals of the Austrian team can only dream of real competition with Red Bull. And if the race had gone smoothly, then nothing interesting in the struggle for victory would probably have happened. Verstappen would bring the nearest pursuer 15-20 seconds of separation, and that’s all. But in Australia, they say, everything is upside down. Many, peering hopefully at the forecasts of weather forecasters, believed that rain would be responsible for the intrigue at the stage, but, as luck would have it, it was criminally sunny on Sunday. But what the elements did not do was done by the judges who hung out red flags three times. The first time was on the ninth lap, when it was necessary to remove the debris from the broken Williams of Alexander Albon. This restart, however, did not really affect anything. But the other two had a serious impact on the course of the race.

The stage was already coming to an end, the first three consisting of Verstappen, Hamilton, Fernando Alonso were mentally preparing to soak in champagne splashes, as Kevin Magnussen painfully famously flew into the turn, demolished the rear wheel on his Haas and strewn the track with a pile of garbage. The judges immediately hung out a red flag (it seems not from real necessity, but just in case), to which Verstappen said: “What the hell ?!”, Hamilton asked: “How?!”, Alonso gave a laconic: “What? ! And this restart was already important. It would, of course, be beautiful if Hamilton again jumped Verstappen at the start, and there, you see, he would have reached the finish line first (no one forgot that just such a restart in Abu Dhabi, a couple of laps before the checkered flag, brought the Dutchman in 2021 his first league title and stripped Hamilton of a record eighth championship). But Verstappen resisted. But Alonso could not resist. The 41-year-old veteran’s already solid collection of gray hair must have seen a big addition after he was thrown off the track without a hint of any reason by the only remaining Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz (Charles Leclerc left for gravel in the debut of the race) . But besides that, Logan Sargent (Williams) took Nick De Vries (AlphaTauri) off the track, and two Alpine riders Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly “pleased” the team bosses by colliding with each other. And that’s it, and also the fact that the blockage happened when the cars had not yet reached the end of the first sector, saved Alonso. The judges, who had already taken out the red flags with a trained movement, reasoned that in such a situation it was necessary to restart again (on the 57th of the 58 laps of the race), but arrange the riders, not counting those who dropped out, as they stood at the restart of the previous one. That is, Alonso returned third place. And Sainz was given a five-second penalty for disrespect for his childhood idol (Saint himself said this more than once), which immediately threw him out of the points zone.

On this, in general, it all ended. The peloton, returning to the track, drove the formation circle, which was the last one. Verstappen still chalked up the victory in Australia, Hamilton got on the podium for the first time this season and now can boast of having been in the top 3 at least once for 17 years. This is a record. And Alonso for the third time in a row became the third. What is interesting: in two cases, the third place remained with him not without the intervention of the judges.

In the overall standings, Verstappen strengthened his lead. The closest pursuer Perez, who in Melbourne managed to break through to the finish line in fifth place, is ahead of him by 15 points. Alonso, who is in third place, is 24 points behind.

Alexander Petrov