Updated:
Mar 5, 2023
This Sunday marked the start of Formula 1, Round 1 of the 2023 season. After dramatic testing and practice results, who knew what the race on Sunday could contain?
Red Bull secured a comfortable 1-2 and secured the dream start to their season, collectively taking 38 points going into the next race.
Meanwhile, Williams will also be delighted with their performance as Alex Albon crossed the line to take P10 and score Wiliams a point in the first race, Logan Sargeant also had a solid drive crossing the line to take P12, not bad on your first F1 race!
Finally, Mercedes claimed P5 and P7 in the race, taking 16 points for the team which seemingly they’d be happy with considering the performance in testing. They do appear to have good straight-line speed so perhaps in the next race over in Saudi Arabia, could suit them better than today.
Aston Martin Release The Sandbags
Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin hoped to achieve a good result on Sunday, the team suggesting anything around P6 would be a significant result for the team considering their dismal start to the previous season.
However, they were treated to more than just P6, with Lance Stroll putting in a mega performance after claiming P6 with his injuries he sustained during the winter break, a rumored broken wrist, as well as a broken toe.
Fernando had a brilliant race and had a lot of work to do in the end to get what he achieved, with Leclerc having a suspected engine failure on Lap 41, he had to overtake Hamilton and Sainz in order to achieve the podium.
After a daring bold overtake into Turn 10, the switchback paid off and he managed to go down the inside of Lewis, with Sainz now in his sights, and after narrowly avoiding contact with his fellow Spaniard, he overtook him and set off to claim P3, a podium in the first race of the season… remarkable!
Yet despite the courageous driver from Lance, Fernando came away as the true hero by securing his 99th career podium, as well as securing Aston Martin’s second podium since returning, the previous being Sebastian Vettel at Baku.
Hopeless McLaren Return To The Drawing Board
McLaren’s performance today definitely didn’t light up any of the fans. The team ended up having a dreadful time out on track today, after what was an overall seemingly average qualifying for the team as a whole, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had relatively bad starts to the race dropping back.
It didn’t get much better as Oscar would end up coming into the pits and being forced to retire the car, a believed electronic failure meant it was back to the garage for him. The news didn’t get much better as Lando would also end up having significant car issues, they helped maintain the car to make it survive the entire race by repeatedly having pitstops.
But we can only assume he was kept out on track in order to collect and gather data for the team, otherwise, it was just a waste to wear out the engine components.
However, the only positive outcome is hoping that the team has learned something today and does learn from these mistakes and errors in which they hopefully can enact on what has been done wrong.
Pierre Gasly Salvages Points After Penalty Heaven
Today marked Pierre Gasly’s first race in Formula 1 not driving for the Red Bull family. It was a breath of fresh air for him as he was given the opportunity at Alpine which he took up instantly.
Going into today’s race the team had hope but assumed they would be more comfortably higher up the grid than they expected, Gasly crossed the line to take P9 securing 2 points for the team.
After qualifying P20 on Saturday evening, getting points on Sunday would’ve been a remarkable achievement for Pierre in which he managed to achieve.
Meanwhile, his teammate, Esteban Ocon, experienced penalty galore which pushed him down the field. He received a penalty for not starting in the correct grid position, then while serving the penalty in the pits it was done incorrect leading to another time penalty, but while serving the incorrectly done penalty he was caught speeding in the pits resulting in a final penalty for the French veteran.
Overall not a good day for Ocon but a very successful first race for Gasly, perhaps future rivalry will embark between the two Frenchman but Alpine will take the points and move on to round 2 which will take place in Saudi Arabia.
Overall, an exciting first race for the season which included many tense overtakes and proper hard but fair racing, teams will hope to capitalise on their good and bad performances today and will see how many pieces they’ll be able to pick up in two weeks time.
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