{"id":61075,"date":"2026-03-10T03:05:46","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=61075"},"modified":"2026-03-10T03:05:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:05:46","slug":"mercedes-set-gold-standard-at-australian-gp-but-new-f1-rules-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/10\/mercedes-set-gold-standard-at-australian-gp-but-new-f1-rules-suck\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes Set Gold Standard at Australian GP but New F1 Rules \u2018Suck\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell claimed victory at the Australian Grand Prix to open the season with a bang as Mercedes showed they are clear early pacesetters under sweeping new regulations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

AFP Sport looks at what we learned from the opening race of the 24-stop calendar:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mercedes set standard<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Mercedes came into the Melbourne race as the pre-season favorites and lived up to the billing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a front-row lockout in qualifying, pole-sitter Russell weathered an early battle with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to claim a statement victory over teammate Kimi Antonelli.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russell called the win “very sweet” and team chief Toto Wolff is confident they have a package that can challenge for the drivers’ and constructors’ world title.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“To see us take a solid 1-2 in race one with the season ahead hopefully means we can try and fight for a world championship,” said Wolff.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It will take a lot of hard work and we know our competitors will be chasing us down, but this is exactly how we wanted to start the year.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

New rules ‘suck’<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Melbourne was the first race under F1’s most radical regulation overhaul in years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The cars are smaller and lighter and the power units now 50 percent battery.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russell said drivers should give the new rules time, but the likes of Lando Norris and Max Verstappen were not impressed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We’ve come from the best cars ever made in Formula One, and the nicest to drive, to probably the worst. It sucks,” McLaren world champion Norris raged.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Everyone knows what the issues are. It’s just the fact the engine is a 50-50 (combustion-electric) split and it just doesn’t work.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Williams’ Carlos Sainz said the public criticism by drivers was “self-harming” for the sport and should be kept private.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lindblad one to watch<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Just one rookie started their first full season as a Formula One driver in Australia and 18-year-old Arvid Lindblad showed no fear.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his first F1 race, the Racing Bulls driver stormed to a composed eighth, surging as high as third at one point.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Briton finished ahead of a slew of more experienced competitors, including teammate Liam Lawson, after showing his potential all weekend.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I know I’m sort of the ‘young kid’ and I’m the rookie, but when I’m in the car, I’m a fierce competitor,” said Lindblad, who has Indian heritage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I’m going to take every opportunity I get, and I think I showed that.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lindblad replaced Isack Hadjar, who moved up to partner Verstappen at Red Bull.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haas stake midfield claim\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There is always speculation how the midfield will shape up at the start of each season behind the big four of McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haas, Racing Bulls and Audi (formerly Sauber) staked an early claim to be “best of the rest” in Melbourne with all three getting cars into the top 10.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ollie Bearman in his Haas finished seventh, with teammate Esteban Ocon 11th.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“To come away with P7 for the team is unbelievable — only beaten by the top four teams,” said team chief Ayao Komatsu.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We have a huge learning curve over the next few races but I don’t think we could have started the year any better.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aston Martin pain\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Silverstone-based Aston Martin endured a horror start after serious issues with their Honda power unit and a lack of spare parts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amid fears that extreme vibration in the chassis could cause permanent nerve damage, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were never going to challenge.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Team boss and design maestro Adrian Newey said he felt “powerless” as new partner Honda work on the problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It’s not going to be a quick fix,” he warned.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cadillac’s rude awakening\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Cadillac made its debut in Melbourne — the first independent constructor to enter the sport since Haas in 2016.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a rude awakening with Sergio Perez 16th and last, three laps behind, and Valtteri Bottas failing to finish.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But team principal Graeme Lowdon was happy with how they started.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We’re up against incredible competition, who we have huge respect for, but I’ve got enormous belief in the team that we’re building here,” he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“This is a really good start to our journey.”<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Russell claimed victory at the Australian Grand Prix to open the season with a bang as Mercedes showed they are clear early pacesetters under sweeping new regulations. AFP Sport looks at what we learned from the opening race of the 24-stop calendar: Mercedes set standard Mercedes came into the Melbourne race as the pre-season …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61077,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61075\/revisions\/61077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}