With a crash before the race had even begun, rain on and off all day and a lot of late twists, there's an ample list of winners and losers for us to assess after Formula 1's 2025 season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Loser - Oscar Piastri
There was a point during the middle phase of the race where Oscar Piastri looked like he might win it. The track was drying out, Max Verstappen had front brake-locked out of the McLaren's way, and Piastri was into DRS range of his team-mate Lando Norris.
You could sense the nervousness on the McLaren pit wall. CEO Zak Brown was adamant his two drivers could race it out, yet at the same time McLaren was trying to stage manage the transition from wet to dry - telling Piastri to hold position while the two McLarens negotiated backmarkers.
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When that late rain shower hit the track while both McLarens were running comfortably 1-2 on slicks, both Norris and Piastri went off at Turn 12 - but Piastri's off was just a bit more 'off' than Norris's was, meaning Piastri spun off onto the grass trying to gather his car up at Turn 13, while Norris just about remained on the asphalt.
That tiny margin made all the difference between them being winners and losers in this race. It turned at least a second place into just a handful of points for Piastri, in what was otherwise an excellent drive from him.
But he still deserves massive credit - especially for that incredible pass around Lewis Hamilton's outside at Turn 9 to nab ninth at the end. - Ben Anderson
Winner - Max Verstappen
This was the sort of crazy, wet, chaotic race where Verstappen's class really shines through. It wasn't quite Brazil 2024 (or 2016 for that matter), but he still looked a step ahead of almost everyone else in what were clearly incredibly challenging conditions.
He was clearly having to work hard to try to overcome the McLaren's inherent pace advantage - and he applied as much pressure as he could by forcing his way between them on the first lap and then hunting down Norris at the end after the rain came down once more.
A fighting second place, on a weekend where McLaren should have scored a dominant 1-2, represents a fine start to Verstappen's title defence, considering Red Bull clearly hasn't got the RB21 working properly yet. - BA
Loser - Ferrari
Considering Norris was talking up Ferrari pre-weekend as perhaps McLaren's biggest threat, Melbourne has to go down as a major disappointment.
The major underperformance in qualifying is one thing, but Ferrari also failed to capitalise on the opportunity presented by the chaos of the race to turn things around.
I'm struggling to recall the last time Ferrari was properly competitive in a wet/mixed conditions F1 race - maybe Singapore 2022, when Charles Leclerc hounded Sergio Perez (but still didn't win)?
Even with Hamilton spending much of his first race for Ferrari stuck behind Yuki Tsunoda's Racing Bulls and Alex Albon's Williams, while repeatedly asking his new race engineer Riccardo Adami to stop telling him how to operate the car, there was a clear opportunity here for Ferrari to salvage a 4-5 result.
Failing to stop early enough for the final set of intermediate tyres ruined that. As Hamilton called it, this was "a missed opportunity" - considering Ferrari came away with just five points and was beaten by a Sauber, an Aston Martin, and Hamilton's Mercedes replacement Kimi Antonelli - who started from row eight of the grid… - BA
Winner - Lando Norris
McLaren and Norris spent much of the winter picking over the mistakes of what cost them the drivers’ championship in 2024 and based solely on round one of 24 of 2025, they appeared to have learned some lessons.
Communication between Norris and the pitwall was calmer and clearer and Norris absorbed the pressure from Piastri and later Verstappen well.
As Norris pointed out, leading the drivers’ championship this early “doesn’t mean anything” but it’s certainly better than the points leaking he and McLaren were doing this time last year that would prove costly later on.
The job has only just begun but Norris's title bid has started perfectly. - Josh Suttill
Loser - Liam Lawson
It's inevitable the internet will now come alive with Perez apologists telling the world that job isn't as easy as it looks after all.
Liam Lawson's Red Bull debut was a nightmare. The excuses are it came on a track he didn't know, in the worst possible conditions, and after he lost the crucial final practice session to an engine problem (following a lack of crucial track time in pre-season testing too).
But still, Lawson has built his reputation so far on adapting quickly. After what he called a "stupid" mistake cost him a better qualifying position on Saturday, to then toil around near the back of the field in the race, battling only with the woefully off the pace Haas cars, then shunting his own car in almost identical fashion to the way Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar did on the formation lap, it was basically nothing short of a disastrous debut.
With Verstappen up near the front, making McLaren's life more difficult than it needed to be, the other Red Bull seemed no better off here for its off-season change of driver. - BA
Winner - Kimi Antonelli
Mercedes getting the slick-to-intermediate tyre call spot on boosted the end result but Kimi Antonelli’s charge from 17th to fourth (once his penalty was overturned) was a properly strong debut.
When running in clean air, which Antonelli didn’t do all too often as he attempted to cut through the pack, Antonelli really wasn’t far off team-mate George Russell’s race pace.
And Antonelli was the clear standout of the 2025 rookie crop, rising to the challenge of the conditions rather than being thwarted by them.
One weekend was never going to justify or extinguish the hype but this can only be seen as a positive start for Mercedes’ Hamilton replacement. - JS
Loser - Carlos Sainz
Carlos Sainz did Hadjar and Jack Doohan a massive favour by proving that even drivers with a degree of F1 experience could throw it at the wall in those early conditions.
It was an odd spin that Sainz's explanation about a big "torque kick" (related to upshifts when in safety car mode) might not have happened if he'd had more experience of what the Williams-Mercedes would do in those circumstances.
And having joined the team's strategy chat in-race afterwards and helped team-mate Alex Albon achieve fifth, he was admirably full of praise for what Williams still achieved without him.
But still…on a great day for Williams, the big-name new signing being the one out on lap one wasn't ideal - Matt Beer
Winner - Alex Albon
Albon's final result of fifth - his best F1 finish since losing his Red Bull seat in 2020 - was superb and well-earned.
The most encouraging thing for his year, though, was how comfortably he and Williams ran among the frontrunners throughout.
Racing Bulls and Alpine had their moments too, but it's Williams that took the big underdog result and looks best placed to embarrass the presumed top four in 2025. - MB
Loser - Racing Bulls
Racing Bulls will be foremost among those teams ruing what Williams managed to achieve, because it could so easily have been Yuki Tsunoda who accomplished it.
This was an outstanding weekend-long Tsunoda performance - the second-strongest Red Bull pool driver by a mile - and given how fast conditions were changing, it was understandable that the team tried the gamble of staying out on slicks late-on.
Sadly it turned a potential top-five finish into a zero score that compounded the misery of Hadjar shunting before his F1 debut had even begun. - MB
Winner - Sauber
Sauber proved to be the most pleasant surprise of the weekend, bringing an upgraded car that was a genuine Q2 contender rather than the slam dunk double Q1 exit car it looked in testing.
And it followed that up nicely in the race. Yes Gabriel Bortoleto’s race was undone by his mistake at Turn 12 but there were plenty of encouraging signs that he’s in for a strong rookie year.
Nico Hulkenberg’s experience paid dividends as he had a solid run to seventh, jumping into the top 10 by pitting for intermediates at the right time.
That earns Sauber six points - more than the team has scored in the last 29 races combined.
And it wasn’t too much of a fluke either so Sauber can hope for more. - JS
Loser - Alpine
Alpine looked neck-and-neck with Williams to be the midfield leader after testing but it will go away from Melbourne without a single point.
That’s mostly down to driver errors. First from under-pressure rookie Doohan who ruined his quietly impressive weekend with a big shunt at the start.
And more painfully later from team leader Pierre Gasly who struggled during the late rain-shower and was gobbled up by the Ferrari drivers and a recovering Piastri.
None of its rivals quite had a Alpine Brazil 2024 moment but its likely chief 2025 rival Williams netting 12 points in one go leaves Alpine with work to do. - JS
Winner - Lance Stroll
A relatively out of nowhere sixth place is a solid start for Aston Martin and Lance Stroll.
There weren’t many signs that this year’s Aston Martin is anything more than a solid midfield car but Stroll continued his strong mixed conditions record to immediately match his 2024 best (also a sixth in Melbourne).
It’s tentatively promising that one of Aston Martin’s key winter aims - making a more driveable car - has immediately broken Stroll’s 11 race point-less streak and closed the gap between its drivers.
And Stroll’s sixth place somewhat made up for team-mate Fernando Alonso’s shunt even if that crash denied Aston Martin a chance to be the only midfield team with two cars in the top 10. - JS
Loser - Haas
Slowest car. Strategy not great. Lapped very early. But Ollie Bearman didn't crash today. So that was… something? - MB
