Autosport Podcast: F1 Australian Grand Prix review

While polesitter Verstappen largely dominated at Albert Park, the race will be remembered for three red flags, the last of which resulted in the 58 lap affair finishing under the safety car.

Verstappen initially lost the lead at the start to Mercedes’ George Russell, while Lewis Hamilton also nipped by into second.

However, the complexion of the race changed when Williams’ Alex Albon crashed out early on. It resulted in the Safety Car being called and Russell elected to pit before officials surprisingly then threw a red flag. The Briton would eventually retire with an engine failure.

Hamilton assumed the lead from the standing restart although Verstappen quickly made the most of the Red Bull’s speed advantage to quickly snatch the lead, which grew to around 11 seconds before the race was red-flagged again. This time Haas’ Kevin Magnussen tagged the wall at Turn 2 that left the field with a two-lap sprint to the finish.

Verstappen fended off Hamilton on the restart but chaos ensured behind, triggered by Carlos Sainz and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso making contact, which then sparked an incident that wiped out both Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, prompting a third red flag.

Following a 30 minute delay and a controversial re-shuffling of the race order, the race restarted under the safety car for one final lap, where Verstappen led home Hamilton, with Alonso finishing third ahead of team-mate Lance Stroll.

Podcast host Martyn Lee is joined by Kevin Turner, Jake Boxall-Legge and Matt Kew to analyse the biggest talking points from a chaotic race at Albert Park.

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or via all good audio platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.