Red Bull Racing dominated the first race of the Formula One season, while Aston Martin put on a show with Fernando Alonso leading the way with a podium finish.
To start the race, Charles Leclerc jumped on Sergio Perez to take second place because of a poor start from Perez, while Max Verstappen drove away to cruise to a race victory.
“A big thank you to the team over the winter and what they have done again to give us such a quick race car again,” Verstappen said.
As the race wore on, Leclerc’s tire degradation took a toll, and Perez overtook Leclerc to establish a 1-2 Red Bull finish. It seemed as if Leclerc would ride around to a third-place finish, but an engine issue with less than 20 laps to go saw Leclerc’s day end. The Ferrari driver will have a steep mountain to climb as the 2022 reliability issues for Ferrari have returned to haunt them to begin 2023.
“We had a good gap behind, I was managing the pace, everything felt good, so it is a shame. Now I just hope we can look into it, understand what went wrong and don’t have this problem anymore,” Leclerc said.
With Leclerc out of the race, his teammate Carlos Sainz was in a prime position to finish on the podium, but fellow Spaniard Alonso had other ideas. The Aston Martin veteran had to work his way through the field in passing both Mercedes drivers and showed the car’s race pace to overtake Sainz. Alonso finished third and is Red Bull’s main threat, as the Aston Martin seems to be the second-best car in the field. His teammate Lance Stroll fought hard for a sixth-place finish ahead of Mercedes driver George Russell. Stroll revealed after Saturday’s qualifying season that he was dealing with a broken toe and wrists. Aston Martin will be the season’s story after struggling to keep up to begin in 2022 and now competing for podiums in 2023; the green machine looks mighty in its first race.
At the bottom of the top 10 was Alpine’s new driver Pierre Gasly who finished ninth after starting last. Gasly displayed resilience to come away with points, as his teammate Esteban Ocon dealt with numerous penalties and had to end his race early.
“Quite impressive how it was not our day today,” Ocon said. “We are usually quite good on these operational things. Pit stopping, stopping at the right places, and these are things that we put a lot of effort on, so everything went wrong today for sure.
In 10th was Williams driver Alexander Albon who showed Williams incredible race pace, along with his rookie teammate Logan Sargeant finishing 12th. Williams looks to be competing for points every race as their car is fighting to be in the top five in constructors.
McLaren had a race to forget, with both drivers finishing at the bottom of the grid. Rookie Oscar Piastri failed to finish after electrical issues early, and Lando Norris could finish but had to pit five times to fix a mechanical problem to finish 17th. After a nightmare start to the season, McLaren will have to rebound March 19 in Saudi Arabia to avoid finishing in the bottom five in constructors.
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