2025 F1 Kicks off Season Amid Challenging Weather Conditions in Melbourne
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – Lando Norris took home the first win of the 2025 season opening Australian Grand Prix for McLaren ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in P2 and Mercedes’ George Russell in P3.
The 2025 FIA Formula 1 season kicked off with mixed weather conditions, crashes and Safety Cars across Formula 1, 2 and 3. While sunny conditions earlier in the weekend produced dry tracks for qualifying sessions, all races were ultimately affected by the rain when it came to the race days.
Formula 3
30 Formula 3 drivers took to the track for the Feature Race with a rolling start after several formation laps behind the Safety Car. A crash between Nikola Tsolov and Callum Voisin sent them to retire in the first lap and reintroduced the Safety Car until Lap 6. With the rain picking up at Lap 11, the Safety Car returned after Christian Ho crashed into the barriers.
TRIDENT driver, Rafael Câmara, who was comfortably in the lead all race, claimed the first F3 victory of the year when the Red Flags were thrown on Lap 18 and the Feature Race was called. With him on the podium were Van Amersfoort Racing’s Theophile Naël in P2 and TRIDENT teammate, Noah Stromsted in P3.
Formula 2
With weather conditions not improving in the following hours, the Formula 2 Feature Race was cancelled with FIA Formula 2 CEO Bruni Michel citing that “the track conditions were too dangerous, which the drivers confirmed over the radio, so the right call was to cancel.” The Formula 2 drivers will await their 2025 season debut at the next leg of the championship in Bahrain on 11th-13th of April alongside F1 and F3 again.
Formula 1
Lando Norris started the Formula 1 race on pole ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri and defending champion Max Verstappen. Starting off on a wet track, improving conditions had drivers making the change to slicks for the second half of the race. An unexpected patch of rain sent both McLaren’s onto the grass, a situation from which Piastri struggled to recover from, while Lando headed to the pits again.
A crash caused by Kick Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Red Bull’s Liam Lawson brought back the Safety Car for a final period this weekend, briefly putting Norris under stress from Verstappen when it ended and he entered the DRS zone. Nonetheless, Norris maintained his lead until the end and he took P1 in Melbourne, followed by Verstappen and Russell, with Mercedes rookie, Kimi Antonelli, coming in fourth place on his F1 debut.
With this victory Norris breaks Verstappen’s historic 1,029-day streak of being at the top of the F1 driver standings.
