Melbourne Rumble — Formula 1 Australian GP 2023 (with Data Analysis)
After falling asleep during the race in Jeddah, I finally didn’t have to stay up late to watch Formula 1. Qualifying and the race start at 12:00 in my region. In fact, races like those in Australia and Japan are the ideal time to fill a Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
The 3rd race of the 2023 Formula One season was held at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Australia. The circuit, which had several races cancelled due to the pandemic, underwent a layout update in 2022. Some corners were made smoother, then this year, the DRS zone was increased from 3 to 4. No wonder the average speed on this 5.278km circuit will be increased compared to previous years.
By the way, this track is also my favorite in F1 games (I only have F1 2020 and 2021 btw). So much that I repeated the hot lap in time trial mode from night to morning until Iwas exhausted. And the results were always not good.
Free Practice 1
This session started at 08:30 in my region. It was fun to watch F1 early in the morning. But I had to secretly watch F1 while working in the office, although the consequence is that I couldn’t fully watch during working hours.
Max Verstappen was fastest in FP1. However, he struggled in this session. He spun in turn 4 and went slightly off track to touch the gravel. The instability was probably caused by using a less loaded front and rear car setup compared to his teammate, although Sergio Perez’s car did not look entirely stable either.
While watching, it seems that many drivers are still struggling with their car setup, such as Yuki Tsunoda overshooting in turn 1, Sergio Perez in turn 3, Kevin Magnussen in turn 3, Lewis Hamilton almost snap in the fast corner turn 9, and several others.
Then what made me scratch my head was that there seemed to be a failure in the GPS system. Each team could not communicate the position of the car on the track and caused some drivers to almost collide. In fact, normally each driver is informed by the pit wall to avoid if there are other drivers doing fast run.
- Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton is in second place! Is this a sign of Mercedes’ comeback? But George Russell is 9th.
- Sergio Perez is 0.5s behind his team-mate.
- Fernando Alonso is still solidly leading Aston Martin.
- The Ferrari duo is still struggling to show that Ferrari is a top 3 team.
- Lando Norris brings McLaren into the top 10! But this is still free practice 1. On the other hand, Oscar Piastri is 12th with a time difference of about 0.25s to his team mate.
- Alpine has yet to show its potential.
- Williams > Haas > Alphatauri > Alfa Romeo.
It seems that there are still many drivers who can improve their lap times and get the ideal lap out of each car they drive. For example, look at Alex Albon, there is a potential of 0.413s for his best lap and the possibility to bring Williams to 5th place (if the results of the other drivers are as they are). Even Max Verstappen with the best lap time still has room for 0.015s improvement during session.
Free Practice 2
Normally this session is used for qualifying and race simulations by all the teams. But all plans didn’t go smoothly because of the rain.
This session seemed a bit wasted as none of the fastest times in the session were on intermediate tires. Perhaps the rain was used by each team to learn the intermediate tires on their cars. So it seems a bit unfitting if we want to see detailed data in this session.
But data is data.
The most significant is Sergio Perez, who has a potential improvement of more than 0.5s! Perhaps it was also due to the heavy traffic on the track that some flying laps were interrupted by other drivers.
Good to see Ferrari at the top of the chart, although this may not be a representative result for the next session.
Free Practice 3
Saturday morning it was great to sit in front of my laptop and watch FP3. The TV picture showed that the weather in Melbourne was cloudy. Watching the whole session, it looked like it was going to be similar to Free Practice 1.
Heavy traffic interrupted the flying lap session, some drivers were still struggling with the setup, even Guanyu Zhou spun in turn 1–2. At the end of the session, Carlos Sainz hit the gravel. Fortunately, he was able to save his car and return to the pits.
The average time in this session was much improved compared to FP1 and FP2. Due to the rain in FP2 yesterday, every team wanted to maximize the FP3 time to test different set-ups.
- Max Verstappen took an impressive first place, in fact his fastest time of 1:17.565 is already faster than the 2022 pole position of 1:17.868. But Sergio Perez struggled in 6th. He was seen locking out and hitting the gravel several times.
- Aston Martin is still a solid top team and Fernando Alonso beat last year’s pole lap.
- Alpine looks promising, hopefully this result will be representative in the next session.
- Mercedes is constantly shadowing Aston Martin.
- Ferrari again could not prove that they are a top 3 team.
- Alfa Romeo looked much better than in the previous session.
- Haas > Williams > McLaren > Alphatauri. Very different from the previous session, especially McLaren.
Max Verstappen is truly remarkable. Although he set the fastest lap, there was still the potential for 0.142s better. It is clear that the addition of the DRS zone between Turn 8 and Turn 9 can significantly improve overall lap times.
Looking at the chart above, the gap between all the drivers is quite large.
There was a 7km/h difference in top speed between Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso. Despite the lower top speed, the small lap time gap with Max Verstappen shows that the Aston Martin car was very good at corners. The character was similar to Mercedes if we look at George Russell.
Alpine, who previously led the Aston Martin character, could setup the car to reduce drag without compensating downforce, so the top speed achieved was relatively high compared to others.
Alphatauri, Alfa Romeo and McLaren didn’t seem to be able to determine a setup as balanced and efficient as they are on average in the lower left quadrant.
Williams and Haas as the high rank in top speed were not able to provide the maximum setup to generate good downforce.
Qualifying
I stayed in front of my laptop and waited for the qualification, surfing and watching YouTube. Indeed, fasting during the month of Ramadan makes times felt very long. I couldn’t wait to watch the qualifying session.
Q1
It was a bit confusing to watch this session as it seemed like many drivers were doing multiple flying laps in a row. Usually the order during the flying lap is: Out Lap -> 1 Flying Lap -> In Lap. But it looked like they were warming up to condition their tires to the optimum temperature before doing a push lap.
- As usual, Max Verstappen led the way, but it was bad luck for the Red Bull team when Sergio Perez hit the gravel in turn 3 while starting his flying lap. Due to the incident, Sergio Perez was unable to continue and qualifying was delayed by a red flag.
- Wow, Mercedes looks improved in 2nd and 3rd.
- Esteban Ocon could take Alpine to 4th but not Pierre Gasly who was 13th. The gap between them is more than 0.5s.
- Aston Martin is solid in 5th and 6th.
- Ferrari are 7th and 11th. It looks like Charles Leclerc is still struggling.
- Alex Albon is amazing to be in 8th place and get Williams into Q2. Too bad his team mate Logan Sargeant is 18th and not in Q2.
- The Haas duo impressed to finish ahead of Charles Leclerc.
- Lando Norris showed his talent by getting McLaren into Q2 (should be nothing special for a team like McLaren), but Oscar Piastri did not qualify due to a 16th place finish.
- Alphatauri was just enough to qualify for Q2.
- It’s a shame that Alfa Romeo didn’t make it to Q2.
Q2
In this session the drivers did several flying laps in quick succession, parallel with tyre warming up. Perhaps because the conditions were not ideal, with cloudy skies and lack of simulation during practice.
- Max Verstappen remained fastest with a 0.2s gap to 2nd place.
- Fernando Alonso was starting to show his strength.
- Ferrari could prove that their team is in the top 3.
- Nico Hulkenberg was very impressive and brought Haas into Q3 with 5th place! But Kevin Magnussen couldn’t qualify for Q3 with only 14th place.
- Mercedes were pretty much 6th and 8th.
- This time Pierre Gasly got 8th place, beating his team mate who was 11th. This means that Esteban Ocon could not make it to Q3.
- Lance Stroll didn’t seem to be able to keep up with Fernando Alonso, but it was enough to qualify for Q3.
- Alex Albon! took Williams all the way to Q3.
- Alphatauri couldn’t get his car into Q3.
- Lando Norris was eliminated in Q2. Seems to be struggling, even slipped into the gravel in turn 3.
Q3
Penultimate session to determine the grid order. Just like before, the drivers did several flying laps to get the best results. What’s exciting about this session is that Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen and even Lewis Hamilton took turns on pole. It seems that everyone is trying their best to get the most out of their cars.
- Max Verstappen set the fastest lap of all sessions with a time of 1:16.732. A big improvement on the previous session.
- George Russell! Previously not at the pole party, surprisingly got 2nd place. Just 0.236 seconds off pole. Beating Lewis Hamilton who had already tasted provisional pole.
- Fernando Alonso had to settle for 4th place and was still ahead of Ferrari.
- Lance Stroll separated the Ferrari duo, Carlos Sainz in 5th and Charles Leclerc in 7th. Ferrari is still struggling with their car.
- Alex Albon put Williams in 8th place! Just ahead of Pierre Gasly in 9th.
- Nico Hulkenberg had to settle in 10th for Haas.
In-Depth About Qualifying
Now we combine all the laps from all the Q sessions and see what the potential laps of each driver would be if all his best sectors could be obtained in the last flying lap.
We can see that Fernando Alonso could be the 3rd fastest but still lose to Carlos Sainz whose ideal time was better than Fernando Alonso. Surprisingly, Nico Hulkenberg had the opportunity to take Haas to 5th place if he could extract the potential but the rest remained as it is.
Alpine’s top speed is impressive, but it has yet to translate into the car’s performance in the corners. Aston Martin, with the lowest top speed compared to the other teams, was able to convert the car’s power with a good lap time. Mercedes looks quite balanced, it looks like this race will be interesting to see Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari fighting for 2nd place. In addition, Charles Leclerc was also very impressive in his fastest lap, his slowest speed was at the highest position compared to other drivers.
Now let’s take a look at the time delta and speed comparison between best driver from top 4 teams.
- Max was very good in the fast corner and in the mid-late straight (look at the top speed). The top speed difference is up to 8 km/h to Aston Martin.
- George and Fernando were pretty close.
- Carlos lost a lot of time in turn 1 and was more than 0.4s down in turn 3.
Race
I still can’t process what I saw. So much action in the race! Melbourne is rumbling.
The race started and it was chaos right from turn 1. George Russell managed to overtake Max Verstappen in the first corner to take the first position, then Lewis Hamilton managed to overtake Max Verstappen in turn 3. In the same place, Charles Leclerc got stuck in the gravel in turn 3 after contact with Lance Stroll. The incident brought out the safety car.
After the Safety Car returned to the pits, the race was restarted. Shortly after Charles Leclerc retired, Alex Albon crashed on lap 7 near turns 6 and 7. There was a lot of gravel in the middle of the track.
The safety car came out again. There were some who took advantage of the safety car to go into the pits and change tires. But what was the surprise? Then the stewards waved the red flag! The race was temporarily suspended to clear the track of debris.
The biggest loss was George Russell. Previously he was in first position until he had to drop to 7th position. The same happened to Carlos Sainz until he had to drop out of the top 10 from 4th position.
The order of the top 10 after the red flag is Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, Pierre Gasly, Nico Hulkenberg, George Russell, Yuki Tsunoda, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
The race restarted after the red flag. It was quite exciting to see Max Verstappen chasing Lewis Hamilton. He looked more cautious, waiting for the right moment, until finally on lap 13, on the long straight between turns 8 and 9, he was able to overtake Lewis Hamilton and take the lead. Shockingly, by the end of lap 13, Max Verstappen had built up a lead of around 2.6 seconds!
George Russell was on a mission to recover from his previous damage. He made progress until finally got back to 4th place after a wheel-to-wheel battle with Pierre Gasly. But misfortune struck again. George Russel was forced to retire at the end of lap 18 after a problem with the power unit caused the engine to catch fire.
Carlos Sainz was also amazing. Lap after lap, he passed and overtook his opponents until, in lap 18, after George Russle retired, he was in 5th position. Not content with that, he continued to chase Pierre Gasly, who was doing an extraordinary job of bringing the Alpine to the front, and was able to pass him on lap 25 to take 4th position.
Sergio Perez, who started from the pit lane, improved his position lap by lap. There were times when he was able to overtake one opponent per lap (from lap 19 to 23) until he was stable in 9th position.
McLaren were very impressive today. One of the actions seen was Oscar Piastri battling with Yuki Tsunoda for 11th position on lap 29, then Lando Norris holding on for 8th position to get McLaren’s first points in 2023.
Until, on lap 43, Sergio Perez made his move and overtook Lando Norris. On lap 44 he overtook Nico Hulkenberg and is now in 7th place!
Back to the front, with a gap of more than 10 seconds between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, on lap 48 Max Verstappen locked up into the grass at turn 13. 3 seconds were lost due to this incident, but thanks to the big gap he still held on to 1st place.
At the end of the race, a shock happened.
Lap 54, Kevin Magnussen went wide in turn 3 and hit the barrier, shattering his right rear tire and spraying debris everywhere.
The safety car came out again and then, red flag on lap 56!
There were two laps left in the race. For me it would be very interesting. All the drivers went back to the pits, changed tires and would do the ultimate push in those 2 laps. Ultra sprint race.
Now we’re getting ready for the second restart of the race.
It’s lights out and chaos in the first turn! Carlos Sainz touched Fernando Alonso, Logan Sargeant into Nyck De Vries, the Alpine duo into each other!
Red flag was raised again. 4 drivers retired from the race. Fortunately, Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz survived and able to back to pit.
The stewards then investigated the restart procedure. The disadvantage of this restart was Fernando Alonso, because he was on lap 3 and had to be on the last position because of the previous incident. Fortunately, the stewards nullified the lap and reset the grid position according to the previous restart due to race leader didn’t reach first sector before red flag. Fernando Alonso will start from 3rd position again.
But strangely, Carlos Sainz, in 4th, got a 5 second penalty for his incident with Fernando Alonso. This cost him a lot, because if the race had been 1 lap under the safety car, he would have been out of points! Carlos Sainz was frustrated and asked his team to contact the stewards to explain what happened at the end of the race. But it looks like the decision is final.
After the chaos that ensued, it was finally Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso who made it to the podium. Great results also for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who scored points for McLaren! Nico Hulkenberg scored impressively for Haas, as did Zhou Guanyu for Alfa Romeo. Finally, Yuki Tsunoda scored his first points for Alphatauri in 2023.
When we look at the global race pace during the race, Ferrari seems to have a better pace than Mercedes and Aston Martin! The difference in pace between Red Bull and the 3 teams above is not much, only about 0.2s per lap! McLaren might do better in the next race and Alphatauri still seems to be struggling.
Thank you!
That’s it! I hope you enjoy my writing. Please consider following me if you like my articles.
It would be great if you could give me feedback on my writing, since I’m still learning how to write well and extract data into a story.
By the way, I also have a dedicated twitter account to blab about race weekend as a spectator from home. Check @statbyhafid and let’s rant together on Twitter.
