Formula 1 2023: All the news, analysis ahead of Australian Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc and Ferrari return to Albert Park as the reigning Australian Grand Prix champions — but much has changed in the past 12 months.

Oscar Piastri and girlfriend Lily Zneimer at Moonlit Wildlife Sanctuary on the Mornington Peninsula.

Australia has had at least one homegrown talent on the grid at Albert Park each year dating back to Mark Webber’s fifth-place finish on debut for Minardi in 2002.

Webber and Daniel Ricciardo shared the grid from 2011-13, before the latter took over as the sole Aussie in Formula One until last year.

Now it’s Oscar Piastri’s turn.

He’s taken Ricciardo’s place at McLaren and will make his Melbourne debut in just his third career F1 start.

It’s been far from smooth sailing for the 21-year-old, whose debut lasted just 14 laps — and a promising qualifying in Saudi Arabia was ruined by damage to his front wing on the opening lap.

But Piastri entered F1 as one of the most hyped rookies ever and now finally gets the chance to race at the track he grew up attending as a fan, having lived only a stone’s throw away.

Both Webber (fifth) and Ricciardo (ninth) scored points in their respective AGP debuts, though the deck is stacked against Piastri doing the same.

Will Oscar Piastri finally snap the hoodoo which has haunted Aussie drivers on their home track?

McLaren does not look like the ‘best of the rest’ car of recent years, though its true race pace is still unknown after a horror run of bad luck for both drivers in the first two races of the season.

Unfortunately for Piastri, luck has never been on the Aussies’ side in Melbourne.

No homegrown driver has stood on the podium — let alone won — in the 38 years since the AGP joined the Formula One Championship circuit.

Ricciardo crossed the line in second back in 2014 for what would have been his maiden career podium, only to be disqualified five hours later for a technical breach.

Piastri did qualify an impressive eighth in Saudi Arabia, so a return to Q3 in Melbourne would not be far-flung.

Whether he can convert that into a points finish is another story.

As for the mythical Aussie podium? Short of a miracle, it’s unlikely.

But we dare to dream.

Oscar Piastri produced a stunning drive during qualifying in the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix. Can he do the same at Albert Park?

RED BULL CIVIL WAR

If you haven’t been paying attention through the first two races of the season, it looks like Red Bull is set to streak away with the championship once again.

For the first time since 2009, Red Bull took back-to-back one-two finishes with perfect race days in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia — and it’s hard to see them slowing down.

Max Verstappen leads teammate Sergio Perez by a single point atop the drivers’ championship and the latter looks like the only person who could possibly challenge the reigning champion for the title this season.

With rival teams already conceding Red Bull has won the battle, it seems only an impending civil war could scupper the team’s all-conquering plans.

Tensions are high in the Red Bull garage dating back to Brazil last year, when Verstappen refused to concede his place to Perez who was fighting Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for second in the championship.

They were heightened in Jeddah last week when Verstappen ignored direction from the pit wall and went for the fastest lap at the end of the race, pinching the extra point from Perez that would have put the Mexican ahead of his teammate in the drivers’ standings.

After his victory, Perez tweeted of his desire to fight for the championship — only to quickly delete and repost the tweet, this time without mention of his title hopes.

For as long as they have been teammates, Verstappen has been the clear number one driver – both in pace and in performance. But Perez was able to hold the Dutchman at arm’s length in Jeddah.

If ‘Checo’ manages to master the Red Bull in the way Verstappen seemingly has, it could make for an intriguing battle of teammates this season.

FERRARI’S FALL OFF

Charles Leclerc and Ferrari return to Albert Park as the reigning Australian Grand Prix champions — but much has changed in the past 12 months.

Last year, the Monegasque driver met the checkered flag more than 20 seconds ahead of Sergio Perez in second. But he may not even feature on the podium this time out.

Short of any mechanical issues, the Red Bulls will almost certainly feature at the pointy end. After that, Aston Martin and Mercedes also have claims to a podium finish alongside Ferrari.

The Scuderia started the 2022 season with the best car on the grid, before a combination of stalled development, poor strategy calls and a dominant Red Bull shifted the landscape.

Now it’s Red Bull with the early running and Ferrari that’s left to play catch-up, though from a long way further back.

After a DNF in Bahrain, Leclerc had his promising qualifying in Saudi Arabia scuppered by a 10-place grid penalty.

Incredibly, Ferrari had already exhausted two allotted control electronics units for the season before the second race, after going through both in Bahrain.

Reliability has been the early bugbear of the Scuderia in 2023 and it’s already weighing heavily on Leclerc — no doubt exacerbated by the ridiculous pace of the Red Bulls.

Twelve months is a long time in motorsport and for Ferrari, what looked like a return to the top of the mountain has instead become another case of playing catch-up.

Don’t be fooled by the smile: Everything might not be happy for Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes camp.

TEAMMATE BATTLES

We’ve spoken already about the burgeoning civil war at Red Bull, but theirs is not the only garage that could explode into a battle between teammates this season.

With many writing off the championship race as already run and won by Red Bull, attention will quickly turn to other storylines of interest.

A common thread is the head-to-head battle between drivers in teams and 2023 looms as one of the best in a long time.

George Russell is entering his sophomore season at Mercedes and having beaten seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton in 2022, again looks to be a genuine threat to the F1 great this year.

Hamilton wants an eighth world title but clearly feels the 2023 Mercedes will not help him get there. What will grind the superstar’s gears even more is if Russell continues to outplace him as the season wares on.

At McLaren it’s a battle of the young guns, with established star Lando Norris joined by Aussie rookie Oscar Piastri in the papaya.

Norris is heralded as a champion of the future but is still without a race win to his name, owing largely to McLaren’s inability to build a contending car.

Piastri joins F1 as one of the top-rated rookies ever and has so far shown an ability to at least match Norris for pace, which is something Daniel Ricciardo could never do.

In Saudi Arabia, after Piastri’s late pass on Norris, the Briton seemed bemused when asked about the battle with his teammate.

Then there are Alpine and Haas — teams featuring drivers with a history of genuine dislike for each other.

Alpine’s French duo Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly have a long rivalry dating back to their junior days, while at Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg are now teammates at Haas six years after their infamous “suck my balls” stoush in Hungary.

Look who’s back: Fernando Alonso’s resurgence for spell trouble for two powerhouse teams.

ASTON MARTIN ASCENSION

Fernando Alonso is back on the podium and to many an F1 fan it feels like normality has been restored.

After years of his talents being wasted in middle of the road teams, the two-time world champion has started 2023 with back-to-back third-place finishes.

Aston Martin has seemingly leapfrogged Mercedes and perhaps even Ferrari to be the second-best car on the grid, making Alonso’s bold call to leave Alpine at the end of 2022 look like a masterstroke.

How the AMR23 will fair at Albert Park remains to be seen, though after two weekends of impressive qualifying and race pace it’s becoming clear that Aston Martin has built a car to contend.

Alonso last tasted victory at Albert Park way back in 2006 — the year he claimed his second world championship with Renault. It would be a tough ask to consider him a challenger to Red Bull in Melbourne, but stranger things have happened.

As for his teammate, Lance Stroll carried two broken wrists to sixth in Bahrain and would have featured prominently in the top-10 in Jeddah before a forced DNF.

If the Green Machine can put both its drivers deep into the points in Melbourne, it will pile even more pressure on Mercedes and Ferrari to lift their game.