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Formula 1, an unexpected early mechanical DNF from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen paves a Ferrari 1-2 finish with Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jr. now a first time winner at Albert Park

by Sports Benches

We didn’t see that coming but we now have a new Australian Grand Prix winner for 2024 and his name is Carlos Sainz Jr who drives for Scuderia Ferrari off the back of these unexpected early retirements from reigning champion and last year’s winner Max Verstappen (Red Bull-Honda RBPT) as well as Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes whose team-mate George Russell also suffered a late race crash). He too had a great race for the majority unchallenged with team-mate Charles Leclerc rounding off a 1-2 Ferrari finish since the 2022 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Looks like it will be Ferrari v Red Bull for the championship now with Sainz Jr (-11 points) and Leclerc (-4 points) not far behind Verstappen (currently on 51 with back-to-back wins) in the drivers’ standings. Plus, fellow Red Bull driver Sergio Perez has still yet to win this year despite back-to-back 2nd places in the hope of going one better that would help him keep his ride for another couple of years after he just finished 5th (-5 points).

For the Aussies, We also hoped to at least see one on the podium but Oscar Piastri didn’t do bad though just outside the Top 3 places in 4th behind his McLaren-Mercedes team-mate Lando Norris, while Daniel Ricciardo finished not far from the Top 10 in 12th despite being a lap down for Visa CashApp RB-Honda RBPT since he was in a midfield race machine.

Also, shoutout to the two Haas-Ferrari cars just rounding off the Top 10 points in Nico Hulkenberg (9th) and Kevin Magnussen (10th). So does Ricciardo’s team-mate Yuki Tusnoda from Japan after he collected a few points in 8th just behind the Aston Martin duo of Lance Stroll (7th) & Fernando Alonso (6th). And although things are still going slow at the moment over at Jack Doohan’s Alpine-Renault squad with Esteban Ocon finishing last on track (16th), but Pierre Gasly did benefit from these early race retirements on what has been an okay 13th placed finish. It remains to be seen if Alpine’s form will turn things around sooner rather than later as a mid-season driver change remains unlikely for now but Doohan hopes his time will come most likely next year depending on the team’s commitment to the sport & if Ocon and/or Gasly leaves for a better race team like Mercedes and Red Bull. F1 will now go from Albert Park in Melbourne to Suzuka in Japan who will now host early rather than later during the season as the next race (Round 4 of 22) will take place after Easter on the weekend of Sunday 7th April 2024.

If you wish to follow all other races after watching this annual Australian race since it’s free-to-air protected, Fox Sports/Kayo will be the only place here to watch live & on-demand with next day race highlights available for free thanks to Kayo Freebies.

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All you need to know ahead of next weekend’s 2024 Australian Grand Prix Formula 1 Event at Albert Park in Melbourne

by Sports Benches

The 2024 Australian Grand Prix Formula 1 Round is not far away beginning next Friday at the streets of Albert Park in Melbourne. It will be the third race of a long 24 event calendar with 3 x reigning champion Max Verstappen who is outstanding so far with back-to-back pole and race wins in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for Red Bull-Honda RBPT. So this is the man to beat as he’s also the defending winner here, having done so for the first time last year on what has been a caution filled race that led into a late finish around 5.30pm local time. Don’t forget we could see another talented youngster again in Britain’s Oliver Bearman who filled in well for the ill Carlos Sainz last time round (Saudi Arabia) for Ferrari where he finished 7th. What’s even better that we will have two Aussie drivers on the grid again for the first time since 2013 where high-flying youngster Oscar Piastri and the experienced Daniel Ricciardo will be flying the flag for McLaren-Mercedes and Visa CashApp RB-Honda RBPT respectively. There hasn’t been a home winner since Alan Jones back in 1980 during his Championship-winning season for Williams as it’s unlikely we will see Piastri end that long-running drought at this stage but you never know.

But wait there’s more, Alpine’s Test/Reverse driver Jack Doohan and his legendary motorcycle grand prix dad Mick will also be stopping by at the same time where they will do a bit of their own fun event together with Jack driving a Benetton B200 and Mick riding a Honda RCV213 production bike around the track. While it’s a bummer that Jack won’t be given a chance for next Friday’s free practice sessions since he chose not to race anything this year after two good seasons in Formula 2, we will get to see more of him throughout this year – mainly during the European leg races. Considering Alpine’s disastrous start of 2024, hope Jack can be given a chance and get to be on race days if things don’t work out by the middle of the year. But again, it’s a difficult sport to get into considering you would need lots of financial support in order to get your foot into the door out of a 20-car competition. So Alpine should correct the mistake they did with Piastri two years ago regarding the contract dispute/next season’s driver line-up and have Doohan replacing Esteban Ocon if he goes to Mercedes or even Pierre Gasly earlier than expected who is sitting last right now in the drivers’ standings behind American Logan Sargeant from Williams.

And lastly, the broadcast details on where you can tune in if you’re unable to watch the race in-person. Fox Sports with its streaming platform Kayo has the exclusive rights to every round of the season from practice, qualifying, some sprint races and the all-important race days Live and on-demand. They will simulcast the Sky Sports feed all along and if you want to keep up to date with Formula 1 as the season goes on, look out for free-to-view highlights clips sometime on a Monday after each Grand Prix. Also, as part of the current anti-siphoning rule required to have the annual Aus GP event on free-to-air by the Government, Network 10 will be back onboard for this event for the 20th year and the 22nd year covering this sport if you count 2020-21 being COVID related years when the sport was unable to race here at the time. They will once again have their studio coverage as well as their own commentary since 10 had to share the rights with Fox back in 2015 where they will air all three days of the Australian GP event live. This is the second year out of five under the current updated Formula 1 broadcast deal here where 10 & Fox Sports/Kayo are not going anywhere right now with the next rights cycle coming up from 2028.

All in all, it’s going to be an amazing event with the Supercars, Formula 2 and 3 also on show amongst other categories in the lead up towards the main 56-lap race next Sunday afternoon at 3pm AEDT.

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F1 live, Oscar Piastri follows up his 2nd podium finish just outside the winner’s circle of Max Verstappen for McLaren-Mercedes in Qatar

by Sports Benches

Oh so close but what a way to bring up a P2 finish that follows up from his career first podium finish of 3rd during the previous round in Japan two weeks ago by Oscar Piastri for #4 McLaren-Mercedes.

He has definitely benefited the opening lap Mercedes’ team-mates crash of Lewis Hamilton & George Russell that saw Lewis had to retire early where Oscar gained a few spots from his starting place of 6th to 2nd. Although he wasn’t able to stop the now 3 x World Champion Max Verstappen who continues to dominate the whole field by a comfortable 4 second gap, but it’s still an unreal weekend though to reflect in the end with another podium finish.

From a supposed 3rd in qualifying being wiped out by race control to winning all of the sprint formats & to now posting his best result of 2nd – hats off to Oscar on an excellent drive with credit of a front row race car being prepared by McLaren.

There’s only five races left with the United States Grand Prix next up in two weeks time at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas. Let’s hope Oscar can follow up a podium finish again but this time he wins a full Grand Prix for the first time.

The last time a McLaren driver won a race was fellow Aussie Daniel Ricciardo from the 2021 Italian Grand Prix. So hope the next McLaren winner will be an Aussie again but with Piastri being on top of the podium as we’re going to see a brilliant finish to his rookie year in the hope of being ready to challenge Max next year.

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F1 News Live, Australian Oscar Piastri gets his first Sprint Race win for McLaren in Qatar

by Sports Benches

Wow!! What a day it has been from Australia’s own Oscar Piastri who dominated both the Sprint qualifying shootout & the 19-lap race itself for McLaren-Mercedes at the Qatar Grand Prix in Lusail. He had a great opening few laps & although he lost a spot to George Russell (Mercedes) for a while, but Oscar managed to regain top spot off Russell & stayed there comfortably this time through the end with the win. 

How good was that to see Oscar record his next best moment in Formula 1 as a full race win will come his way sooner rather than later hopefully to wrap it up tomorrow at 4 AM AEDT time. We thought he will be starting 3rd, but will start 6th instead because his final lap time was invalid due to exceeding track limits which was also applied to his team-mate Lando Norris.

Regardless of that, he will hope to make the most of his starting position through a decent race car by challenging up front against the Mercedes & Red Bull cars including now 3 x World Champion Max Verstappen from the Netherlands.

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What if Toyota re-joined Formula 1 by forming a works partnership with McLaren?

by Sports Benches

Image Credit: Lukas Reich via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

The McLaren-Toyota links are growing where they had a great relationship of using Toyota’s wind tunnel facilities over in Germany for a few years before their own particular building was completed lately going forward. But it doesn’t stop there as McLaren has extended its relationship with the Japanese car manufacturer by hiring one of their factory drivers from the sportcars program in 29-year-old Ryo Hirakawa, even though McLaren currently uses Mercedes Benz.

He too has an excellent racing record, having won the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year as well as an World Endurance Championship (almost back-to-back now) & 2 x Super GT titles.

It will be no surprise if Toyota goes back to Formula 1 at some point as early as 2027 or 2028, but I assume it would just be an exclusive engine supply deal with McLaren – nothing else. That way, we could see some Toyota and/or Toyota Gazoo branding as part of the paint scheme if the relationship does go even further – as long as they’re on the same page so they can run up front & win races all the time unlike McLaren’s disastrous time with Honda back in 2015-2017.

As far as Ryo is concerned, we also hope he will be racing F1s on Sunday someday like Yuki Tsunoda who is at Alpha Tauri. But I guess he will just be there to gather data in the McLaren car & send feedback to Toyota as part of the plans rather than seeing him trying to oust either Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri, whom both of these youngsters are both untouchable. If Ryo was to be on race days, he would be racing for a 2nd Toyota Formula 1 team like Williams again unless Piastri does very badly between now and the end of 2026 or else see Lando end up at Audi in three years time.

He’d be about closer to age 34-35 which is kinda close to impossible, but age isn’t a factor though if you look at Fernando Alonso (Spain) who is still doing well in the Aston Martin-Mercedes car right now at age 42. It’ll be nice to see him race at Monaco though to try and win there, so he can be one step closer towards completing the Triple Crown (Monaco, Le Mans & Indianapolis 500). Plus, McLaren also has an IndyCar team too. Maybe they can help Ryo out for a one-off ride at the (Indy) 500, but it will most likely be 2025 unless they can find a partner with a small Chevy IndyCar team since they got Kyle Larson onboard for the next big occasion. 

All in all, McLaren would choose their next engine partner that has never won a Formula 1 race before in Toyota, despite delivering numerous podium finishes when they previously raced as a fully fledged factory team between 2002-2009. But it seems both partners are willing to take baby steps from the ground up that began with McLaren using Toyota’s wind tunnel to now accessing their driver talent pool. Hopefully, McLaren can learn from their poor experience a few years ago with Honda, while Toyota will promise them at the same time to give the race-winning chassis they need with a good quality powertrain as they’re currently dominating in Sportscars, Rally-Raid & Rallying. 

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F1 Live Race Today at Suzuka: Max Verstappen unstoppable with Aussie Oscar Piastri’s first podium in P3 for McLaren while NZ’s Liam Lawson finished 11th in Alpha Tauri

by Sports Benches

Yes, today’s Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix race was crazy earlier on where we saw a few cars make contact into each other that led to some DNFs along the way. But it was a great day though with Max Verstappen being unstoppable in the Red Bull-RBPT Honda before he was joined by both McLarens to round out the Top 3 as Lando Norris finished 2nd followed our Aussie own Oscar Piastri, who scored his first podium finish in 3rd. We wished Oscar would’ve chased down Max from 2nd, but then he was blocked by the race winner immediately after the race start where Lando took a great view on the outside from 3rd to 2nd before he couldn’t get on hold onto Max as the race progresses. There will always be another Oscar moment after his mother couldn’t be there to watch her son race in-person today, but it looks like we will see him win races & hopefully a World Championship someday thanks to his latest four-year contract extension a few days ago with McLaren.

And shoutout to New Zealand’s Liam Lawson down in 11th for the Alpha Tauri-RBPT Honda outfit. He had a great battle with his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda from the start, although he was losing some track position for a while. But he had a great last half run though nonetheless, having made up some lost time where he got around Yuki before being way ahead of him en route towards another good result – despite being a lap down in his 4th race. Again, this is one driver who deserves a full-time seat. But there’s nothing we can do about it unless Williams can loan him out (which is unlikely) following the news yesterday that Alpha Tauri will retain both Yuki and the injured Daniel Ricciardo next season. Next stop, Lusail International Circuit in Race 17/23 this season under the lights for Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday 8th October/Monday 9th October at 4am AEDT here.

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