Well, that was a nice and relaxing start to the season wasn't it?
With it beginning at 04:00 my time I was worried that I'd struggle to stay awake for the entirety of the 2025 opener, but with some wild weather and crashes aplenty, it turned out to be the equivalent of about 30 cups of black coffee.
The one downside of such a thriller was that picking out just a few talking points from all of the carnage was as difficult for me as completing a lap of Albert Park was for the drivers; Alex Albon and Yuki Tsunoda both produced performances worthy of more than just this sentence of praise I'm giving them, but hey, I've got to watch that word count.
So, with sincere apologies to them, these are my main takeaways from the Australian Grand Prix:
Norris and Verstappen pick up where they left off
A huge amount has changed since the end of last season: Lewis Hamilton now drives for Ferrari, Andy Murray now coaches Novak Djokovic, America has a new (old) President. However, some things have stayed the same, with Max Verstappen and Lando Norris continuing to be the cream of the F1's crop.
2024's top drivers were two of the standout performers from the off in Melbourne, with Norris claiming pole position and Verstappen going quicker than rivals in stronger cars to secure third. On race day though, they stood even further above the rest.
Leading from the front, Norris barely put a foot wrong from start to finish, despite being under constant pressure first from teammate Oscar Piastri and then Verstappen, not to mention the changing conditions. The Brit has cracked under such pressure in the past, but handled it like a world champion in waiting down under.
As for Verstappen, I feel like some people have forgotten just how good a driver he is in the last few years with a dominant car making it somewhat easy for him, but they've very much been reminded now. He was a long way ahead of everyone not in a McLaren all race, managed to get ahead of Piastri at the start and managed to put pressure on Norris once the Aussie had crashed out.
Others may get involved and the roles look like they'll be reversed with the Dutchman doing the chasing this time around, but after the opening round it feels like 2025 could be another year of Verstappen vs Norris at the very top.
Hamilton finally gets front-row seats to The Ferrari Experience
There probably isn't a driver in the history of F1 who has benefitted more from Ferrari's famously poor race strategies than Lewis Hamilton, who has gained points, positions and even titles because of them for almost 20 years. Now though, he's on the other side of those strategies, and his new team wasted no time reminding him of that.
After watching their driver be stuck in eighth behind Albon and Tsunoda for 40 or so laps, Ferrari had the chance to gain him some places with a smart strategy when rain started to fall, but instead, they did the complete opposite.
Initially, they decided to keep him and teammate Charles Leclerc out while everyone else pitted for intermediate tyres and they moved up to P1 and P2 as a result. However, when making that decision, the team failed to foresee that the rain was only going to get heavier and that their drivers were ultimately going to have to pit themselves, losing them a huge amount of time to the rest of the field.
They were then given the chance to make one last gamble when Liam Lawson's crash brought out a Safety Car. With the pace of the race slowed, Hamilton and Leclerc could just about keep their cars on track with their dry tyres and if the rain stopped by the time the Safety Car came in, they'd maybe have a shot at victory. Rather than take that risk though, the team pitted both and dropped them to the fringes of the top 10.
In hindsight, such a gamble probably wouldn't have paid off, but it was surely worth taking given they only scored five points by playing it safe. Ultimately, the real problem is that they put themselves in a position where taking a huge risk was their only chance of securing a strong result.
Lewis Hamilton, welcome to Ferrari.
Antonelli rises in rude awakening for the rookies
While Hamilton had a day to forget, his replacement at Mercedes enjoyed one that he'll remember for the rest of his life.
It couldn't have been a tougher first race for the 2025 rookies thanks to the treacherous combination of Melbourne's narrow street-like circuit and a wet track. Isack Hadjar didn't even make it to the start line, crashing out on the formation lap, and Liam Lawson, Gabriel Bortoleto and Jack Doohan all did so in the race that followed, while Oli Bearman spent it languishing at the back. Kimi Antonelli though, was different.
After a disappointing qualifying session, the 18-year-old started down in P16 but showed remarkable composure - with the exception of one spin - and some strong pace to steadily make his way through the field. By the time the rain started to fall, he was up to P10, and then he really came into his own.
With drivers going off all around him, he kept his cool to climb into the top five and then picked up the pace to get past the Williams of Albon and cross the line in P4, just 1.5 seconds behind teammate George Russell.
With that result, he became the second youngest points-scorer in the history of the sport, behind only Verstappen. Toto Wolff's belief that he's the biggest talent to join the grid since the Dutchman is looking to be well-founded after race number one.
