The Australian Grand Prix was full of surprises with three rookies on the podium, showing the few remaining veterans how to drive. Of course, we can always count on some chaos to do the show.

Even though he was on pole, Dino Beganovic still struggled with his start and he did it as well for the first race of the season. Alexander Dunne took the upper hand going from P3 to P1 but locked his front tyres, giving the lead to his teammate Martinius Stenshorne. Durksen had an issue with his antistalled and found himself in P18. After the first Turn, Noel León and Oliver Goethe slightly touched. On lap 3, Dunne tried to overtake Stenshorne but neither of them wanted to give the position to the other. The rear tyre of the Alpine academy driver touched the front wing of his teammate, leading both of them to DNF. It created a safety car and both Rodin’s cars had a heated radio, with the Irishman saying Stenshorne will “never finish in front of me ever again”.

Second safety car and penalties

Nikola Tsolov managed to keep his lead at the restart despite an hungry Rafael Câmara behind him. Sebastián Montoya was the first driver to come into the pit and a lot of the drivers on supersoft tyres did the same. Miyata did a great overtake on Kush Maini for the fifth position. The leaders were scared to be undercut by the drivers behind them and also pitted for soft tyres on lap 10. Kush Maini stalled while trying to leave the pit. Beganovic tried to overtake Câmara on lap 12 but didn’t manage to do so even though he was close to the Invicta car. He managed to pass him two laps later.

Montoya took a 5-seconds penalty for speeding into the pitlane and Durksen as well for a false start. On lap 13, only two drivers remained without a pitstop, Varrone and Shields. A three way battle between Hitech’s cars and Durksen was on the way. Gabriele Miní behind slowly joined them. The DAMS Lucas Oil of Beganovic had an issue and stopped on track, creating a virtual safety car that became a safety car a lap after. Cian Shields made his mandatory stop under it, leaving the pit in P11.

Hard battles for the final position

Nico Varrone pitted a lap later but his team completely missed the pitstop. Thankfully for him, he had enough time to still leave the pit as the leader because the safety car was not in the right place, which created a confusion for the drivers behind it. However, the Van Amersfoort driver went too quick into the pitlane and took a 5-seconds penalty. He kept the lead at the restart for a moment before Nikola Tsolov lost patience and attacked him for the lead. Câmara tried to overtake as well but didn’t manage to do so and it created a small DRS train. Inthrapuvasak was defending hard to keep his position against Montoya. Same things for Van Hoepen against Goethe for fourth place.

Cian Shields went a bit wide into the first Turn making him lose position and gained zero advantage into being on supersoft. Câmara finally managed to overtake Varrone on lap 27. Van Hoepen tried to do the same but didn’t manage to overtake, giving the opportunity to Oliver Goethe to get really close to him. Gabriele Miní struggled with understeer as his front tyres were a bit too used to turn properly. He went a bit too wide and Villagomez took P11 away from him. Colton Herta and Joshua Durksen both overtook Varrone who was really struggling on his supersoft. Nikola Tsolov won the Australian Grand Prix with a 1.9 second lead. Câmara finished second and Van Hoepen completed the podium.