2025 Australian GP talking points: Lando Norris’ win, Lewis Hamilton’s debut struggles and more
The 2025 F1 season finally got underway with a chaotic race in the rain at Albert Park, Melbourne on Sunday, March 16.
With only 14 of the 20 drivers finishing the race, wet and slippery conditions - F1’s great equaliser - served up a thrilling treat for those who braved an early morning start to catch the action.
Sports News Blitz’s F1 writer Henry Eccles takes a look at the key talking points to come out of what was a wild start to the season at the 2025 Australian Grand Prix.
A champion’s drive from Lando Norris
Given the conditions, and the expectations on McLaren this season, Australia was arguably the greatest drive of Lando Norris’ career so far.
The biggest criticism levelled at last year’s runner-up was his ability off the line under pressure, after losing his pole position lead in Spain, Hungary, and the Netherlands in 2024.
At Brazil, Norris again lost his lead at the start, and later ran wide on a rainy Interlagos circuit to finish P6 and virtually hand Max Verstappen the Drivers’ title.
On Sunday, however, the Briton handled everything thrown at him, leading the race effectively from start to finish, despite changing conditions, three safety car restarts and pressure from team-mate Oscar Piastri and Verstappen.
McLaren appear to have a clear pace advantage early on, but it was by no means an easy Sunday drive for the Woking team.
On lap 44, Norris and Piastri, running P1 and P2 respectively, slid onto the gravel at Turn 12 - with the latter failing to slow down and getting stuck on the grass at the next corner.
Thankfully, Piastri reversed his way out of it, but could only recover to finish P9 at his home race.
After that scare, Norris then had to withstand last-lap pressure from four-time world champion - and wet weather maestro - Verstappen, but remained cool and collected to take the first win of the season.
The drive from Norris was every bit as significant as the win itself - rarely has the 25-year-old looked this assured under so much pressure to perform.
In such tricky conditions in Melbourne, the McLaren man sent a clear message as to why many regard him as the favourite to win the 2025 Drivers’ World Championship.
A lot of work to do for Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari
While it was never going to be a seamless transition after 12 years at Mercedes, Melbourne represented a disappointing start to Lewis Hamilton’s career at Ferrari.
After being stuck behind Williams’ Alex Albon for most of the race in P8, Hamilton lost more ground to team-mate Charles Leclerc.
He then crossed the line in P10, earning just one point after a sensational last-lap move from the recovering Piastri.
The seven-time world champion cut a frustrated figure in his new cockpit, constantly having to tell his race engineer Riccardo Adami to ‘leave me to it’ throughout, something he rarely had to do with his long-time Mercedes engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington.
With more time, communication between Hamilton and the pit wall will surely improve - what should worry the former McLaren star more is yet another questionable strategy call from the Scuderia.
On Lap 47, as Verstappen - alongside most of the grid - returned to Intermediate tyres following another downpour, Ferrari threw the dice and left both Hamilton and Leclerc out on slicks and advanced to P1 and P2.
Almost immediately, however, Ferrari knew they made the wrong call, as Norris overtook Leclerc and looked set to reclaim the lead off Hamilton before crashes from Liam Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto forced a safety car.
Even under the yellow flags, conditions were too treacherous to leave the Ferrari drivers out. Both had to pit for Inters and returned on track to make up the final points positions.
After losing places to Leclerc and Piastri, the Brit was left ruing what he called a ‘missed opportunity’ at Melbourne and said his first weekend in red ‘went a lot worse’ than he expected.
Team principal Fred Vasseur also expressed disappointment with Hamilton’s first outing for Ferrari but is hopeful that the Scuderia will learn from their mistakes.
"It was the first race, the first time that we have to communicate between the pit wall and the car, and we can do a better job and know each other more,” Vasseur said.
"For sure it was not a clean one at all, the strategy was difficult and we need to find a better way to communicate between the car and the pit wall but we will learn from race one and it is not an issue.”
READ MORE: F1 news: McLaren star Lando Norris weathers the storm in Melbourne
Kimi Antonelli is a star
As the rain fell on the Albert Park circuit, the six rookies making their full-season debuts in F1 could hardly have had a tougher first test.
Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar failed to even start the race after crashing during the formation lap, while Alpine’s Jack Doohan spun out after just five corners of racing.
As mentioned before, Lawson and Bortoleto had to retire later on in the race, and despite Haas’ Oliver (Ollie) Bearman finishing, he was still the last driver to cross the line, down in P14.
The only rookie to seriously impress was Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli, pulling off an excellent recovery from his P16 qualifying position to eventually finish P4.
The young Italian thought he had been demoted to P5 by a five-second penalty following a pit lane incident with Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg, but this was later removed on appeal.
Apart from one spin at turn four on Lap 16, Antonelli was faultless in the rain and was unlucky to lose out on a debut Driver of the Day to Norris.
On Lap 56, Antonelli’s pass on Alexander Albon to take P4 was nothing short of sensational, with the track still damp, the Italian made a bold move around the Thai-British driver at the high-speed turn nine.
The overtake was not captured by TV cameras at the time, but the footage has since been replayed and has left some fans astonished by the 18-year-old’s skill and courage.
It was a cherry on top of what was an incredible display from the young Mercedes driver, not too dissimilar from his namesake Kimi Raikkonen’s P13 to P6 debut drive at the same circuit in 2001.
Williams are serious
Despite eventually losing out on P4, Alex Albon’s performance was one that cemented Williams as a serious team to watch this season.
Even after a strong pre-season test in Bahrain, nobody would have been certain of their apparent improvements until Saturday’s qualifying.
And it is safe to say the Grove team did not disappoint.
For the first time in a decade, both Williams cars made it into Q3 at Melbourne, as Albon qualified P6 and new recruit Carlos Sainz ended up in P10.
It was a qualifying result that left Sainz feeling vindicated by his bold decision to join Williams after leaving Ferrari, commenting that “it might have just [been] how it is meant to be.”
Unfortunately for Sainz, a ‘massive power surge’ saw him spin out under safety car conditions early into Sunday’s race, forcing the Spaniard to retire.
Nonetheless, with P5 secured for Albon, Team Principal James Vowles later revealed the crucial role Sainz played as an extra strategist, praising his ‘incredibly useful’ insight during the transition to Intermediate tyres.
Vowles said: “We saw other teams not sure, ‘Do we try and hang it out, can we try and hang it out?’, and Carlos was adamant, ‘You won’t survive on that through the last few corners.’
“He was spot on, and helped drive us towards that.”
A big reason why the Spaniard was such a coup for Williams is his ability to make those big calls while everyone else appears to be floundering.
For instance, his first-ever F1 victory in 2022 at Silverstone came as a result of him going against questionable team orders from Ferrari to back the chasing pack up, despite being on fresher tyres than team-mate and leader Leclerc.
In both Sainz and Albon, Williams finally now have two leading racers that can take them back to where they belong, and with the improvements made to the car over the winter, a real chance to fight for points every race weekend this season.
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Haas have gone backwards
While Williams look like the winners out of the midfield teams, Haas are most certainly the losers after Melbourne.
Similarly to Williams, there was a fair amount of hype surrounding Haas after pre-season testing, but they were dead last throughout the season-opening weekend in Melbourne.
It was a disaster from the start for rookie Ollie Bearman, after a crash in FP1 meant he barely got any running in before qualifying.
Practice was not much better for newcomer Esteban Ocon either, consistently at the very back of the grid throughout.
A gearbox issue for Bearman then prevented him from setting any time during qualifying.
Meanwhile Ocon’s 1m 17.147s in Q1, over two seconds behind Norris’ eventual pole lap, left the Frenchman in P19.
After pre-season, it was thought Haas would be at least ahead of Aston Martin and Sauber, both of whom scored important points at Melbourne.
Despite each having their team-mate crash out, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg went well in the wet to finish P6 and P7 respectively.
For Haas, meanwhile, out of the points in P13 and P14, the only positive during Sunday’s race was that both of their drivers kept it on track.
What’s next?
F1 fans do not have to wait long for more action, as we head straight to China for the first Sprint weekend of the 2025 season in Shanghai.
For UK fans, the first and only practice session will get underway on Friday, 21 March at 3:30am, with the main race set to start on Sunday, March 23 at 7am, all covered on Sky Sports F1.
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