Luke’s Weekend Take – Australia GP 2023

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2023 Australian GP Preview: Will Red Bull Maintain Dominance as Aston Martin Keeps Pace and Hamilton Rumors Swirl?

Australia GP 2023

And down under we go for round 3 of the 2023 Formula 1 season at Albert Park Australian GP. Will we see Aston Martin be able to keep up their great pace they showed so far, and will we see Red Bull keep running away with this season or will there be a kink in their armour with potentially some reliability issues? 

Biggest rumour on the leadup to this weekend was about Lewis Hamilton to leave Mercedes at the end of the season and go to Ferrari swapping places with Charles Leclerc. Lewis Hamilton’s contract with Mercedes is due to expire at the end of this season, however Hamilton was very quick to dismiss these rumours saying that he doesn’t “plan” to leave. Toto Wolff also commented saying that he doesn’t see Lewis leaving the team but will have no grouch if in a year or two Lewis leaves for a different team if Mercedes are unable to give Hamilton a winning car. 

Both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc commented this weekend that they are unsure as to when the car upgrades will be coming in this season but like every other Tifosi fan out there I myself am hoping it is today rather than tomorrow. We will see Ferrari & Mercedes doing their best to try and catch the Red Bulls up this season so they will be in a better spot next year and maybe the back half of this season where we will hopefully see a 6-8 horse race up front rather than the current 2 horse race that is Red Bull by themselves.  

We have seen the FIA taking actions on the grid boxes due to the penalty malarky we saw last time out in Jeddah. The FIA have widened the grid boxes by 20cm and also extended the yellow line to go out way more out to the side so the drivers are able to line their front wheel properly and hopefully avoid picking up any penalties at the start of the race. FIA are also trailing a line down the middle of the grid box in order to help drivers align the car within the grid box area. The white line down the middle is only on the first 2 rows of the grid. 

All Eyes were on Valtteri Bottas on Thursday when he turned up to the track embracing the “Aussie” look wearing a tank top, shorts, flip flops (A.K.A  as “Thongs” in Australia) and sunglasses showing off his beautiful mullet and also rocking a T-Shirt tan, who commented to the media saying that he is absolutely loving it in Australia and how it is sort of a home race for him at Melbourne. Bottas also showed off his special Helmet he will be wearing this weekend for the Australian GP.  

Midfield Battle Heats Up: Lando Norris Optimistic for McLaren's Potential, Haas and Alpine Strong in Contention, and Crazy Qualifying Shakes Up Grid for Albert Park Australian GP

Onto the midfield now which is the most exciting race this season with the lack of contention for the race win. Lando Norris commented earlier on this weekend that we have not seen the full potential of the McLaren car due to issues in the opening 2 races, and he is hopeful that they can fight for points this season so hopefully we get to see that on Sunday. In FP2 Lando managed to finish in 8th place ahead of the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly.

Haas this season are also looking strong in the midfield battle with Kevin Magnussen’s incredible fight with Yuki Tsunoda in the closing laps of Jeddah, although both Haas and Alfa Romeo have confirmed that they will be taking on new power units for their cars with no penalties as they are still within the quota.

Alpine have also been performing very well in the opening races managing to get double points for the team in Jeddah and Gasly finished in the points in Bahrain. After a brilliant qualifying we see Gasly made it to Q3 and will start in 9th tomorrow while Esteban Ocon just missed out on Q3 by 0.007s which was very frustrating for him.

Qualifying was crazy this morning where we saw Sergio Perez beach his Red Bull at the start of Q1 taking him out of qualifying and bringing out the only Red Flag in qualifying at Albert Park. Mercedes also came out flying at the end of Q3 securing themselves 2nd and 3rd places and they will be looking to take the fight to Max Verstappen who took pole position for the first time in his career in the Australian GP. Fernando follows in 4th followed by Sainz, Stroll, Leclerc, Albon, Gasly and Hulkenberg form the top 10. This grid surely guarantees for a good race tomorrow and I for one am extremely excited to be up bright an early for the race. Who do you think will take the chequered flag tomorrow? Will Verstappen run away with it as expected or will we see Aston Martin and Mercedes have a say in the matter?

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