Australian Grand Prix: Race Recap

Bearman started from 12th on the grid on Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires but endured a challenging opening lap, dropping a place, before recovering to the fringes of the top 10. The British racer cycled through the order by remaining on track during the first virtual safety car period, then pitting on lap 18 under the second virtual safety car phase – taking on the White hard compound. Bearman re-emerged in eighth place and hunted down Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad, before putting a pass on his compatriot for seventh position and a haul of six points to start the season.

Ocon launched off the line from 13th place on medium tires and moved up to eighth on an eventful opening lap, before pitting under the first virtual safety car on lap 12. Ocon swapped for hard tires and re-emerged in ninth place, embarking on a battle against the Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto and Pierre Gasly in the Alpine. The Frenchman exchanged positions, and some minor contact, in his scrap versus his compatriot, and classified in 11th place, just eight-tenths of a second outside of the points.

TGR Haas F1 Team holds fifth position in the Constructors’ Championship on six points.

Up front Mercedes registered a one-two finish, with George Russell leading home Kimi Antonelli, with Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc third.

Ollie Bearman:

“It was a good race. It wasn’t the best first lap, but after that we had great pace and made some overtakes, so I’m really happy as it was a strong performance out there from us today. It’s a special feeling to start off these new regs like this, it’s a great result for the team being ‘best of the rest’. We benefited from a few retirements from others ahead of us, but regardless, we scored points, and we’re going to take every one of them. I’m proud of this team, finishing the race in P7 shows and validates all their hard work.”

Esteban Ocon:

“It’s been a disappointing race as we should have been in the points after the great start we had gaining places. After that though the pace wasn’t there and we were struggling with a lot of rear instability. It was frustrating as I think there was a lot more the car could have done. While we do need to get on top of it, we’ve still learned a lot this weekend, so we’ll see how it goes in the next race. I’m pleased for the team that we’ve scored points here in Melbourne as there was a lot of hard work over the break to get ready for the season.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

"First and foremost a big congratulations to everyone. This journey has been hugely challenging, not just over the last few months, but throughout the development phase as we were working on the VF-25 and VF-26 in parallel, which wasn't the case for everyone else. There were mixed emotions after qualifying yesterday – it was a solid result, but we could have done better. Today we focused on the basics, ran our own race, made the right calls at the right time and the pit stop crew delivered. The race was a brand-new challenge in terms of managing energy, which I think we handled as well as we could, learning with every lap. To come away with P7 for the team is unbelievable – only beaten by the top four teams – I'm so proud of everyone. We have a huge learning curve over the next few races, but I don't think we could have started the year any better."