Defending champion Max Verstappen has won the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne after three chaotic restarts.
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton took his first podium of the season after finishing 2nd with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso finishing in 3rd on the day.
The signs of an incident filled race were evident during the qualifying sessions of yesterday and it was no surprise by the amount of crashes suffered by some drivers today.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was the first driver to retire from the race in the first lap as cars made it to Turn 1. Moments later, Williams’ driver Alex Albon made a costly error by running over gravel in Lap 7 which spilled debris on the track and damaging his own car and that caused the race to be red-flagged or to be suspended temporarily.
The race restarted with Lewis Hamilton as race leader but it did not take too long before the raw pace of the Red Bull of Max Verstappen caught up with Hamilton in 12th lap of the race. Sergio Pérez of Red Bull had also climbed up considerably from the back of the grid as the Mexican was already 13th in Lap 18.
Mercedes’ George Russell also suffered reliability issues when his car had flames burning in the rear.
Defending champion Max Verstappen momentarily lost control of his car when he slid on to the grass but it did not affect his race lead.
Kevin Magnussen lost a tire after hitting the wall in Lap 53 of 58. Another red flag caused a restart in the last two laps of the race but a crash happened once again as a stream of midfield cars made it to Turn 1 among whom was Fernando Alonso as he was spun by Carlos Sainz then both Alpine drivers of Pierre Gasly and Estaban Ocon we out after crashing into each other.
The race will eventually end with Max Verstappen crossing the line first for his second victory of the season. His teammate, Sergio Pérez was voted as “Driver Of The Day”after finishing 5th.
Below is the top 10 classification of the race.
The driver standings is gradually taking shape of today’s third race.
The next race of the season will take place on April 30 in Azerbaijan.
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