The critical calls preceding Verstappen's Melbourne march and F1's red flag saga

The 2023 Australian Grand Prix actually had to explain itself, which seemed about right. The stewards of the third Formula 1 race of the current campaign summoned its promoter – the Australian Grand Prix Corporation – to explain how fans had breached safety perimeter fences close to the debris barriers near Turn 1 when action was still ongoing on the final lap. One was actually on the circuit waving manically as soon-to-be winner Max Verstappen swept by celebrating his victory in bizarre, neutralised circumstances.

The Dutchman made it three Red Bull wins in three attempts so far in 2023, with lots of what happened in Melbourne very familiar to the Bahrain and Jeddah proceedings. But they were bookended by two very different chapters – one very good, one very bad.

In the former tale, for once it wasn’t a story of searing Verstappen brilliance. Nor was it an epic refusing to cede even an inch of ground to rivals. But it asked Verstappen two key questions and, had he answered either differently, the Melbourne result would have been very different even if the two controversial late red flag events remained unchanged.

The obvious reason why Verstappen won the Melbourne race is because his car is simply much better than his opposition’s. But, it’s not so much better that the thrilling circumstances that begin every F1 race – a standing start – don’t leave him and team-mate Sergio Perez vulnerable.

Perez paid for poor starts in Bahrain and Jeddah, and in Melbourne against George Russell, Verstappen did too. The pair reacted well when the lights went out for the start of 58 laps, but Russell immediately gained as Verstappen’s initial acceleration was sluggish before he got wheelspin climbing the gears. But the Mercedes’ progress wasn’t so much that Russell could steam into Turn 1 and seize the lead without Verstappen having the first of his two vital choices to make. 

He'd jinked right as the pack plunged into the quick Turn 1 right, with Russell keeping his W14 pointed at the corner’s apex. Verstappen could have made things harder, but in fact did what many had considered unthinkable: he turned out of a fight. Verstappen fractionally opening his steering back up gave Russell the space he needed to take the lead, plus stymied the Red Bull’s momentum on the exit.  

That meant as Russell scampered clear, Lewis Hamilton and the fast-starting Carlos Sainz were threatening Verstappen on the run to the tight Turn 3 right. Here, Hamilton felt, “he braked early and I braked late”, with the Briton stealing to the corner’s inside and getting alongside.  

George Russell snatched the lead from Red Bull's Max Verstappen in the race's original standing start

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Now Verstappen faced his second big choice in (nearly) as many corners: would he battle the second Mercedes as lightly as the first? The answer ended up being, ‘sort of’. Verstappen certainly swung right and didn’t move out of Hamilton’s way as he had with Russell, but he squeezed his rival on the kerbs. For Hamilton’s part, he stayed committed.  

Somehow, they got through metres that seemed to take an age to traverse without contact. But the Mercedes nipped ahead on the traction-heavy exit towards the soon-approaching Turn 4 left across the Victorian Institute of Sport’s car park, which left Verstappen fuming – feeling he’d been run out of room and denied space to stop Hamilton accelerating quicker. 

“It's quite clear in the rules what you're allowed to do now on the outside,” Verstappen explained post-race. “But clearly it [was] not followed…” 

The world champion was referencing the racing etiquette explained to the drivers in early 2022, which gives a corner to the car with its wheels ahead at the apex. And this was indeed Verstappen, although things were so close between the pair any contact would have had ‘racing incident’ written all over it. 

“We had a very poor start and then lap one, I was careful, because I had a lot to lose and they had a lot to win” Max Verstappen

“I thought it was pretty decent,” Hamilton said of the whole sequence. “I think we both left space for each other. I didn't run him off the road and he didn't turn in on me. We didn't touch and that’s racing.” 

The race officials concurred and the incident was not even noted as contentious by race control. But it all meant that when an opening tour for the ages was completed, Russell led Hamilton by a massive 2.4 seconds and Verstappen sat a further 1.3s back, ahead of Sainz and Fernando Alonso. 

Verstappen had argued his case against Hamilton’s driving on his team radio. But, really, he wasn’t overly bothered. Because he’d aced the second critical test of his race. Once again, he’d survived a skirmish on ground where his car was susceptible, now he could bring its strengths to bear. 

Verstappen voiced his displeasure by Hamilton's move on him at Turn 3 but stayed calm

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

“Max showed great patience really not to get embroiled,” said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner of the opening lap. 

“We had a very poor start and then lap one, I was careful, because I had a lot to lose and they had a lot to win,” said Verstappen. “After that the pace of the car was quick, you could see that straight away. We were always there waiting for the DRS to open up, to have a chance to pass.” 

That didn’t come right away. First there was a safety car restart to tackle – the race neutralised after Charles Leclerc had swung across Lance Stroll’s bows at Turn 3 in the wake of the Hamilton/Verstappen battle and rather knocked himself out of contention. The Aston was left with nowhere to go given Alonso’s example was even further to the inside of the action.  

Once the Ferrari had been craned away, Russell easily aced the lap four restart – he was 0.7s clear of Hamilton over the line – then gave Mercedes its first stint at the head of the pack in 2023, leading the next four laps. His initially growing advantage was quickly stabilised by Hamilton before Russell had escaped DRS range. Hamilton then began to home back towards his team-mate as DRS was finally activated on lap six. 

This was both blessing and curse for Mercedes. For Russell, it meant Hamilton could stay very close thanks to the power of the DRS around, uniquely, four zones. But Hamilton in turn having DRS meant Verstappen was not able to simply breeze by – boosted anyway with Red Bull’s existing straightline prowess.  

Russell reacted angrily to a lap six radio call to protect his front left tyre in the rubber-torturing Turns 5 and 6, but it didn’t matter. On the next tour, Alex Albon smashed his Williams against the Turn 6 gravel trap barriers – his previously brilliant weekend undone actually the corner before when a brief oversteer snap touching the Turn 5 exit kerb had raised his tyre temperatures enough to loosen the rears and leave Albon unable to catch the ensuing massive snap at the next corner. 

The accident initially triggered the safety car and under these conditions Mercedes acted decisively, bringing Russell in at the end of lap seven to swap the medium tyres all the leaders had started on for the hards.

Albon's stranded Williams caused the first red flag and meant Verstappen only had one Mercedes to clear at the restart as Russell pitted under the initial safety car

Photo by: Williams

Hamilton was initially miffed he’d been left out along with Verstappen, but his circumstances took quite the upswing when the race was stopped on lap eight. This gave the two leaders the chance to change tyres in the pits under the suspension and mired Russell in the pack along with Sainz, who’d also been brought in by Ferrari quickly when the safety car was called. 

The 16-minute stoppage was called because the FIA felt too much gravel and debris had been strewn across the track towards Albert Park’s inner lake. But it left Russell frustrated. 

“I thought the red flag was totally unnecessary,” he later reflected. “There was obviously quite a bit of gravel on the track, but there was a clear racing line. We've seen it far worse in the past.” 

When the track was declared clear again, Hamilton got his first chance to lead in 2023, with Verstappen still certain he didn’t need a first corner melee to win. And so, when the race restarted on lap 10, it was all rather smooth – bar Verstappen questioning Hamilton letting the safety car disappear up the road and instead complete a typical warm-up lap at the leader’s pace.  

“It was a question of controlling the race from that point [passing Hamilton] onwards”Christian Horner

This was fine per the rules, but the pack’s slow pace out of Turn 6 left several backmarkers briefly stopped and Kevin Magnussen had to shoot through the gravel Albon’s car had recently been removed from to avoid a huge shunt. At the time of writing this has not been satisfactorily explained by the FIA, almost as if it had bigger things to consider post-race…  

But we’re not there yet – first Verstappen must win the thing. And he basically did so when DRS was reactivated on lap 12, which he’d started with a 0.5s gap to Hamilton. This was instantly evaporated when Verstappen opened his DRS on the sweeping long run between Turns 8 and 9 – the Dutchman “sailing by” Hamilton, per the Briton, on the outside line with a speed difference Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff called “just mind-boggling”. 

By the end of that tour Verstappen had already pulled a 2.1s lead over Hamilton. By lap 18 this was 3.4s – the moment the Virtual Safety Car was activated after Russell’s determined recovery drive ended fierily as his engine suffered “a proper failure”, per Wolff, thought to be related to cylinder problem. This struck as Russell ran through the final corners and down the pitstraight.  

Russell's recovery from stopping under the safety car that never was ended prematurely when his engine failed

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Nearly 30 dominant laps followed between Russell’s Mercedes being removed from the pit exit and Verstappen’s lead reaching 11.1s. He’d pulled away at an average of 0.3s a lap – smack bang in the middle of the advantage Hamilton had predicted post-qualifying that Red Bull would have over Mercedes in race conditions.  

“It was a question of controlling the race from that point [passing Hamilton] onwards,” Horner summarised.  

But while Verstappen was able to do so all while pulling away clear in the lead, that approach also covers the fight for the remaining podium steps far behind, as Alonso had given chase to Hamilton from third at the second start. And it all came down, as is so often the case in modern F1, to tyre strategy.  

A medium-hard one-stop strategy had been considered the optimum coming into the event given how long the Pirellis were lasting on the smooth track surface – the only worry being rubber graining if drivers abused it in the cool temperatures. But the earliest predicted stops had been around lap 14, not the lap eight red flag stoppage. The was also the FP2 washout to consider now as that meant few drivers had completed more than 10 consecutive laps in practice, leaving teams short on race-run data. 

“It was a one-stop race and a very early one-stop race,” said Horner, who knew Verstappen was being asked to complete nearly 50 laps on the hards. 

Verstappen’s only concern up front was occasional front locking – the RB19 demonstrating it certainly isn’t bulletproof and all weekend Red Bull had braking concerns. This actually had him off the road at the penultimate corner approaching the final 10 tours as he “didn’t want to flat-spot the tyre completely” after a “tiny lock-up”. That gifted 3.3s back to Hamilton but didn’t threaten Verstappen’s position because he was already so far ahead. 

But for his rivals, getting the hards through that massive second stint was a considerable task. The pace had gradually increased as the race wore on – reflecting how much was being left unspent to get the tyres to the end. And approaching the start of the final period, Hamilton began exchanging fastest laps with Verstappen as he strived to stay clear of the threatening Aston. 

Verstappen soared into a comfortable lead once through on Hamilton, with his only worry being occasional front locking that prompted a brief off

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

“There was a moment where I thought the tyre was opening up and Fernando was applying pressure, then backing off, and I had decent pace and then closing the gap again,” explained Hamilton of this period where the former McLaren team-mates traded ever-faster times from the mid-1m22s pace of tyre management down to the mid-1m20s by the finale. 

“He had two or three charges, which I had to then really up the ante and try to match him, which was tough. I was able to be around a tenth or so off him, or sometimes ahead. But definitely, with 18 laps to go, I was thinking, ‘Jeez, I don't know if these tyres are going go all the way’.” 

But they did – in fact both Hamilton and Alonso agreed “the tyres were better than expected” and “could keep going”, per the latter, once they’d completed the 47 laps they were raced on. But that was actually a truncated stint because of what happened on lap 54. 

This time when the lights went out, Verstappen felt “my start was a little bit better than what I had before” and he managed to stay ahead of Hamilton

With Verstappen back to 8.4s in front of Hamilton after his Turn 13 gaffe, Magnussen inexplicably ran too wide coming out of the long Turn 2 left and tagged the wall with his right rear. This “was enough to crack the rim and take the tyre off”, according to the Dane. But his wheel rather exploded off on the run to Turn 3 – showering the road with debris. Once again, the red flags flew, setting up a two-lap sprint to the end. And again, not everyone was content with the decision.  

“I don't think we needed that second red flag,” reflected Verstappen. “I think that could have been done with a VSC or a safety car at worst.” 

But that wasn’t to be and so F1 got, like it had at Mugello in 2020 and in Jeddah a year later, a third standing start. This was on lap 57, with all cars switched to the softs. 

There was a bit of controversy first when Verstappen lined up right “on the limit” forwards in his grid box having “braked a bit late” after completing the five burnouts Red Bull required to prime his final start (to avoid what had happened back at the first one against Russell where he’d done just four) and “lost my reference a bit”. He squirted forwards having already stopped but ended up with the wheels “not over the limit” of the grid hatching and so escaped sanction. 

Max Verstappen managed to sweep into the lead from Hamilton at the third standing start

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

This time when the lights went out, Verstappen felt “my start was a little bit better than what I had before” and he managed to stay ahead of Hamilton off the line, then swiftly moved right and sat on the inside line to ward off any attack threat. 

“I was happy about that because the tyres were really cold,” Verstappen said of getting through the restart and Turn 1 unscathed. 

The same could not be said of most of his peers, with low tyre temperature a big factor in why Sainz punted Alonso around in Hamilton’s wake and then a split-second later Pierre Gasly and Logan Sargeant separately locked up and triggered two big crashes that eliminated them both, plus Esteban Ocon and Nyck de Vries.

The former shunted with his Alpine team-mate as Gasly rejoined from cutting Turn 2 and moved right – putting Ocon into the wall near where Magnussen had touched it in a move the stewards declared an unfortunate racing incident.  

De Vries was rear-ended by Sargeant and both Williams and AlphaTauri drivers had to climb out the wreckage in the gravel behind the opening corners. As they did so, Stroll slid into the Turn 3 gravel as he tried to fend off Sainz – having nipped ahead after the Ferrari spun the furious Alonso. But then yet again the red flags were ordered out.  

Once the pack had returned to the pits, Verstappen cannily passing the timing line before stopping underneath the media centre and so technically starting the final scheduled lap, it was clear there would be no more actual racing.  

Indeed, while a confusing 35-minute delay followed, this was the time race control needed to establish the order for the rolling safety car restart that would conclude proceedings just as spectators were breaching fences. 

Although the Haas squad that had seen Nico Hulkenberg rise to fourth in the chaos following the third start argued otherwise, the decision was taken to reset the order to that final start’s grid – minus the cars that couldn’t take the finish. This boosted Alonso back to third ahead of Sainz – soon to be penalised and dramatically demoted to 12th for their contact – and Stroll.  

After a lengthy delay the race ended under the safety car with Verstappen unchallenged during the final lap

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

The FIA felt the grid provided the most reliable order sight and that the SC2 line Haas insisted should have been used instead as a reference at this track sat on a braking zone. Therefore, the officials didn’t want to encourage a precedent of drivers diving past such a point at a future late restart, triggering a crash and then maybe gaining with an order reset. 

“It was a case of, ‘Did they cross safety SC2’, was it another Silverstone?” concluded Horner, referencing last year’s British GP lap-one red flag and the reset order there being determined with the same process, as not all cars had passed the relevant safety car lines and, like last Sunday, the reds had flown before a sector line had been crossed by the pack. “It was clear the race wasn’t going to restart.”  

Everything seems certain for Red Bull these days, bar the starts and the odd braking zone. But in giving his squad its first Australia win in 12 years, Verstappen demonstrated he can ace the only tests that challenge its dominant position right now. 

Verstappen has asserted himself as the benchmark in the 2023 F1 title race after his second win in three grands prix

Photo by: Red Bull Racing