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Welcome back to Prime Tire, where watching Formula One’s return Sunday felt like this:
FRED 😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/gYGWD3Y13s
— sim (@simsgazette) March 16, 2025
One race down, 23 to go. I’m Patrick, and Madeline Coleman will be along shortly. Let’s get to it.
Chill Out
Judging Australian GP overreactions
With six DNFs, a rookie in fourth and one soaking-wet Lando Norris celebrating victory, the Australian Grand Prix was as hard to parse as it was fun to watch. Let’s sift through the aftermath and separate reasonable conclusions from knee-jerk reactions.
Thought No. 1: McLaren will run away with both titles
Norris drove brilliantly to win in Melbourne, holding off a charging Max Verstappen in the closing laps while managing treacherous conditions. McLaren looked quick all weekend, with both cars sitting pretty at the front until Oscar Piastri’s off-track excursion.
But remember last season? When Verstappen won the opening race, and we all wondered if we were in for another year of Red Bull dominance? F1 has a way of making early-season declarations look foolish. There’s a lot of time left. Verdict: Overreaction.
Thought No. 2: Hamilton’s move to Ferrari was a mistake
One point. That’s all seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton could muster in his Ferrari debut, finishing a disappointing P10 while teammate Charles Leclerc grabbed P8. Ferrari seemed discombobulated on the team radio and missed a crucial strategy call when the rain intensified.
The optics weren’t great. But let’s take a breath here. This was always going to be a learning race. When Michael Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996, his first few races were rough before he turned into, well, Michael Schumacher at Ferrari.
Give Hamilton more than one chaotic, rain-affected race before writing off his Italian adventure. Verdict: Huge overreaction.
Thought No. 3: Kimi Antonelli is the real deal
P16 to P4 in your F1 debut? In changing conditions? With veterans spinning off all around you? The 18-year-old Mercedes rookie had a great debut: While five of the six rookies crashed at some point during the weekend, Antonelli kept his car on track when it mattered. He showed aggression, and even when he did spin, he immediately gathered it up and continued his charge forward.
I’m tempted to call this an overreaction based on one rain-affected race, a situation where chaos tends to produce outlier results. But the poise Antonelli showed was genuinely impressive. This wasn’t just lucking into a good finish — he earned it with mature driving beyond his years. Verdict: Not an overreaction.
Thought No. 4: Williams is the midfield team to beat
Williams suddenly finds itself leading the “best of the rest” battle with Alex Albon’s P5 finish. The FW47 has looked solid since preseason testing. But let’s put the Champagne down for a moment.
Albert Park in the rain is a great equalizer. The real test comes on conventional dry circuits where pure pace matters more than survival. We’ll have a better picture of the midfield after race two this weekend in China. Verdict: Overreaction (but a terrific start from Williams that has our attention).
Thought No. 5: The Haas car is a “boat”
That’s what my colleague, Luke Smith, called it this weekend. I disagree. An actual boat would’ve gone faster in the rain. Verdict: Under-reaction.
The Hug
F1 should embrace emotion, not shame it
Isack Hadjar’s devastating formation-lap crash ended his F1 debut before it began. As the 20-year-old trudged back through the paddock in tears, Lewis Hamilton’s father, Anthony, stepped in with fatherly consolation, walking alongside a visibly-distraught Hadjar, who considers Lewis his racing hero.
It was a great moment — but Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko called the rookie’s tears “a bit embarrassing.” Enter our Luke Smith, with a column this morning:
“What’s heartening is that few in the paddock will agree with Marko, whose flippant comment, regardless of context, was thoughtless and unkind. It’s no way to support any young driver — let alone one in your own junior program.”
It’s a great column on the generational divide between F1’s old guard and the sport’s modern attention to mental health and kindness. Dive in here.
Next Up: Shanghai
It’s on to the Chinese GP this week, where we get the season’s first sprint weekend. (Catch up on what all that’s about here.)
- FP1: Thursday, 11:30 p.m. ET / Friday, 3:30 a.m. GMT
- Sprint qualifying: Friday, 3:30 a.m. ET / Friday, 7:30 a.m. GMT
- Sprint: Friday, 11 p.m. ET / Saturday, 3 a.m. GMT
- Qualifying: Saturday, 3 a.m. ET / Saturday, 7 a.m. GMT
- Grand Prix: Sunday, 3 a.m. ET / Sunday, 7 a.m. GMT
It’s also the first race weekend for F1 Academy! Keep an eye out this week for our season preview.
Now let’s throw it to Madeline for a word on Aston Martin’s new toys.
Inside the Paddock with Madeline Coleman
Aston Martin’s wind tunnel is online
News broke on Friday that Aston Martin’s “nominated wind tunnel for development work” is now online, meaning it will no longer be using Mercedes’ physical one down the road.
The Silver Arrows’ wind tunnel is located at Brackley, around a 12-minute drive from the Aston Martin base at Silverstone, and the latter formerly had to load the model into a van and drive “it down a bumpy dual-carriageway,” team boss Andy Cowell said Friday in Australia, adding he and his colleagues would be “hoping it was still in the same condition at the other end.”
Located at its Silverstone HQ, Aston Martin’s online wind tunnel will help develop this year’s car “alongside a big focus for the team’s 2026 challenger.” Aston Martin will be a full works team next season, working with Honda.
Adrian Newey is already looking at next year’s regulations after officially joining earlier this month. But the team face the question of developing the current car in the final year of these regulations versus fully focusing on its successor.
“Adrian joining brings a huge amount of experience and a great competitive mindset,” Cowell said, “and the choice we have made at the moment is that Adrian is working on the 2026 car; he’s putting a lot of effort into that and understanding that. Maybe when we’ve learned where our car is, its strengths and weaknesses, in the opening races, he’ll come up with the odd development tweak for the 2025 car.”
Williams currently leads the ‘best of the rest’ battle after the chaotic Australian GP, sitting fourth with 10 points. Thanks to Lance Stroll’s P6 finish on Sunday, Aston Martin is two points behind the Grove-based team.
Outside the Points
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, fresh off a contract extension, had a meeting with the Prime Minister of Thailand today. All part of F1’s continued push for a race there.
ESPN ratings are in for Melbourne, and it’s good news for the sport: It drew an event record of 1.1 million viewers — up 541,000 from 2024 and the largest-ever Australian GP audience for the network.
Finally, we’re trying something new during grand prix weekends — live rooms via The Athletic’s app, where you can listen to our writers talk racing and ask them questions. All you need to do is download/update the app, make sure you’re following F1 and look for the notifications during the weekend. Here’s a transcript of this week’s chat.
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(Top photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
