Red Bull driver trumps Hamilton in a race which sees two red flags, slew of crashes
\n MELBOURNE
\nMax Verstappen won the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday after two late red flags and a slew of crashes threw the race into chaos before the Red Bull driver was allowed a processional victory lap around Albert Park.
\nDouble defending champion Verstappen was leading Mercedes\u2019 Lewis Hamilton with a few laps left when Kevin Magnussen crashed his Haas into a wall, leaving debris on the track and halting the race.
\nThe cars returned to the grid with fresh tyres for a two-lap sprint to decide the winner but in a chaotic restart, Williams driver Logan Sargeant drove into the back of AlphaTauri\u2019s Nyck de Vries to knock both of them into gravel at turn one.
\nAlpine drivers Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon then crashed into each other to leave a trail of debris on the track and trigger another red flag, the third and last of the race.
\nAfter lengthy deliberations, stewards decided the race would finish with one lap behind a safety car in the order of the previous start – minus the cars that had crashed out. That allowed Verstappen to claim his second win of the season ahead of Hamilton with Aston Martin\u2019s Fernando Alonso third in a race in which eight of the 20 cars failed to finish.
\nRed Bull have now won all three grands prix in the new season, a record for the team, resuming their dominance after their runaway success in 2022.
\n\u201cIt was a bit of a mess but we survived everything …. and we won, which of course is the most important,\u201d Verstappen said after his first victory at Albert Park and Red Bull\u2019s first since 2011.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s a really good weekend for us, we have to be happy with that.\u201d
\nThe Dutchman has 69 points in the championship race, 15 ahead of teammate Sergio Perez.
\n Alonso, third in all three races, is third in the standings on 45 points. Red Bull, on 123 points, have opened up a big lead in the constructors championship ahead of second-placed Aston Martin (65) and third-placed Mercedes (56).
\nOn Fire
\nMercedes\u2019 first podium of the season was soured with George Russell suffering his first retirement for the team after losing power and rolling to a halt with his engine on fire early on.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s really unlucky for George today on our side,\u201d said seven-times world champion Hamilton. \u201cOtherwise, to get those points is really amazing today. I definitely didn\u2019t expect to be second so I\u2019m so grateful for it.\u201d
\nIt was a dark day for Ferrari with Charles Leclerc knocked out of the race at the first turn after being clipped by Aston Martin\u2019s Lance Stroll. His Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz survived all the carnage and was in line to finish fourth but a five-second penalty for making contact with Alonso left him demoted to 12th and raging on the team radio.
\nStroll took fourth instead in a big day for Aston Martin, with Perez placing fifth after starting his race from the pit lane following his disastrous qualifying on Saturday.
\nMcLaren\u2019s Lando Norris was sixth ahead of Haas\u2019s seventh-placed Nico Hulkenberg. McLaren rookie Oscar Piastri celebrated his first points with an eighth-place finish, while Alfa Romeo\u2019s Zhou Guanyu and AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top 10.
\nVerstappen had to recover from a poor start as he lost his lead to both Russell and Hamilton in the first three turns. But after two early safety cars and a red flag when Williams driver Alex Albon crashed out, Verstappen reclaimed the lead by passing Hamilton at the 12th lap after Russell pitted for an early tyre change.
\nVerstappen opened up a big gap before the late red flags saw the race turn from procession to drama and back again. Drivers and team bosses queried whether the red flags were necessary, or whether safety cars might have saved plenty of bother.
\n\u201cObviously, results like this are good for some teams and bad for others,\u201d Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told reporters. \u201cWe just need to understand going forward when are red flags being pulled out and what is a safety car?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Red Bull driver trumps Hamilton in a race which sees two red flags, slew of crashes MELBOURNE Max Verstappen won the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday after two late red flags and a slew of crashes threw the race into chaos before the Red Bull driver was allowed a processional victory lap around Albert Park. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-323476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n