Here comes the rain again

The key moment of decision in the Australian Grand Prix came on lap 44 with the sudden heavy shower just a few laps after everyone had switched to slicks from the original intermediates.

As recounted in the main report, the closely spaced McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were the first to hit the wall of rain at Turn 12 and both had major moments, Piastri becoming stuck for a time on the wet grass, Norris catching the slide and heading immediately to the pits for intermediates. The following Max Verstappen looked like he would have passed Norris had the McLaren continued, such was its loss of momentum. So the decision to pit in that moment, inset, probably won Norris the race.

Red Bull kept Verstappen out for an extra two laps. It wasn’t a crazy decision. It might have won them the race had things been just slightly different. “Well, at first the rain was just at that corner,” explained Verstappen. “The rest of the track was still OK.” If he could lap faster on his slicks than Norris could on his new inters, there was the possibility of the Red Bull overcutting into the lead. Verstappen needed a gap of 21sec over Norris to do this.

At the end of his first extra lap, that gap was 18sec across the line but at one point earlier in the lap it had been 21sec. But now the rain was spreading all across the circuit and the track was suddenly around 10sec slower than it had been. Forced to a relative crawl on his in-lap, Verstappen exited around 5sec behind Norris.

Could Verstappen have taken the lead if he’d done just one extra lap rather than two? “No, we looked very closely at it afterwards,” said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, “and he was never quite in a position to do it.” That 21sec gap was before the by now very wet Turn 12-13. Hence it would have been significantly less than 21sec as he pitted and therefore he’d still have rejoined behind Norris.

Ferrari, meanwhile, had reacted to Verstappen pitting by staying out with both cars, even in the increasing rain. As did Racing Bulls with Yuki Tsunoda. They were tempted into this gamble by the possibility of an against-the-odds victory they had no chance of taking otherwise. It didn’t work for them as the rain just increased. The safety car came out on that lap, losing them further time as they made their way back to the pits.

Afterwards Norris was full of praise for the team bringing him in quickly. “They had four seconds to make that decision,” he says, “and they made it half a second before I boxed… Today was a deserved win because we made good decisions. In the past, we would have done the same race and wouldn’t have won because we were not the best at making those decisions. Today we were.

“Drizzle made a big difference for us, especially for me on the hard tyres. That’s what allowed us to make that call to box.”