Formula 1 in Australia
Chaos race: Norris wins crazy start of the season
Updated on March 16, 2025 – 11:21 a.m.Reading time: 3 min.
The Grand Prize of Australia quickly develops into a dramatic start into the new season of the premier class. All dams break in the last rounds. The first accident exists before the start.
Accidents. Overtaking maneuver. Mist. Wild scenes. Safety car phases. Lando Norris has won a crazy and memorable Grand Prix of Australia. The McLaren pilot prevailed in a seasonal start of Formula 1 in front of world champion Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and George Russell (Mercedes). There would have been even more for McLaren – but Norris’ long in second place teammate Oscar Piatri had a serious mistake in the final phase, which threw him back a long way. In the end, the Australian became ninth at his home race.
Due to the weather caps, only 14 out of 20 drivers ended the race on the traditional course of Melbourne. The German Nico Hülkenberg (Sauber) was able to celebrate a pleasant start to the season, drove into the points with a solid performance and ended up seventh.
The record world champion clearly missed the podium in the eagerly awaited debut by Lewis Hamilton in Ferrari. The 40-year-old, who switched from Mercedes to Scuderia, became tenth. His team -mate Charles Leclerc, also started with large title ambitions into the year, took eighth place.
The Grand Prix was extremely chaotic. It had rained in Melbourne all day. Because the route was so wet, the races of Formula 2 and the Australian Supercars provided in the supporting program could not take place.
Not all of the difficult conditions were grown in the premier class. How slippery it is was already clear in the introductory round: Rookie Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) lost control of his car and hit the route limitation – the race for the French was already over. The 20-year-old, disappointed, cried, Lewis Hamilton’s father Anthony comforted Hadjar (read more about this here).
When the start took place 15 minutes later, Norris claimed his lead – but behind it pushed himself past Piatri. But the field had not yet ended the first round, because the Safety Car had to be on the track: Rookie Jack Doohan (Australia) had lost control of his alpine car, and Carlos Sainz (Spain) also slipped into the end with his Williams.
It took a while for the route to be free again, then the trio at the top sat down step by step. Although the route dried somewhat, Verstappen made a mistake when turning into curve eleven: Piatri benefited from it and pulled by. And the world champion could not counter, instead Verstappen lost the connection. Norris leads in front of Piatri, Verstappen was quickly behind ten seconds.
A radio message then caused irritation at Piatri. From the command stand it was said that he should keep his position. The Australian replied that he was faster, but stick to the order. A little later the next instruction followed: Piatri received the release “to drive the race without restriction”, but he should “adhere to the rules”.
Before he could do this, an accident from Fernando Alonso caused the next Safety car phase. All drivers used these for a pit stop to get fresh tires.
The choice fell on dry tires – but a little later it started to rain again. This caused chaos, and when Piatri slipped off the track, the spectators screamed horrified. After the race was released again, the final between Norris and Verstappen became a close duel.