F1 headed down under for the third round of the 2024 Formula one season, taking us to the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne, a track that provided plenty of drama last year. Needless to say, it did not disappoint this year.

Finlay McSporran
Published: 19:29, 24 March 2024

In this article we will provide a detailed breakdown of all todays action as well as the results from todays Formula 3 and Formula 2 races.

Formula 3

The action started with the F3 feature race, with Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli lining up on pole position. He would hold the lead going into turn one, with the Prema pair of Gabrielle Mini and Dino Beganovic in hot pursuit.

By lap 11 Fornaroli was beginning to pull away from Mini in second, who had just been told to let his teammate Beganovic pass to try and catch Fornaroli, and he did just that, taking the lead on lap 14 where he would stay for the rest of the race.

Beganovic crossed the line in first place to take his first win in F3, with Fornaroli hanging on to 2nd ahead of Mini in 3rd and round 1 winner Luke Browning 4th. After a disappointing weekend in Bahrain, this result has re-ignited Beganovics F3 title challenge as he aims to emulate his title winning 2022 formula regional season.

Full Results :

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Dino Beganovic	Prema	41m23:816
2	Leonardo Fornaroli	Trident	+1.682s
3	Gabriele Mini	Prema	+3.221s
4	Luke Browning	Hitech GP	+4.050s
5	Charlie Wurz	Jenzer Motorsport	+16.958s
6	Sebastian Montoya	Campos Racing	+21.230s
7	Mari Boya	Campos Racing	+21.492s
8	Nikita Bedrin	PHM Racing	+25.610s
9	Oliver Goethe	Campos Racing	+26.530s
10	Christian Mansell	ART Grand Prix	+26.785s
11	Arvid Lindblad	Prema	+27.009s
12	Sami Meguetounif	Trident	+29.437s
13	Laurens van Hoepen	ART Grand Prix	+29.512s
14	Max Esterson	Jenzer Motorsport	+30.441s
15	Tim Tramnitz	MP Motorsport	+33.023s
16	Alex Dunne	MP Motorsport	+33.577s
17	Matias Zagazeta	Jenzer Motorsport	+34.067s
18	Kacper Sztuka	MP Motorsport	+37.812s
19	Nikola Tsolov	ART Grand Prix	+38.222s
20	Cian Shields	Hitech GP	+42.693s
21	Callum Voisin	Rodin Motorsport	+44.080s
22	Joshua Dufek	PHM Racing	+52.748s
23	Piotr Wisnicki	Rodin Motorsport	+1m01.595s
24	Santiago Ramos	Trident	+1m09.926s
25	Noel Leon	Van Amersfoort Racing	+1m10.635s
26	Martinius Stenshorne	Hitech GP	+1m14.235s
Ret	Sophia Floersch	Van Amersfoort Racing
Ret	Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak	PHM Racing
Ret	Tommy Smith	Van Amersfoort Racing
Ret	Joseph Loake	Rodin Motorsport
Fastest lap: Beganovic, 1m35.588s Championship standings: 1 Browning 37   2 Fornaroli 37   3 Mini 32   4 Beganovic 28   5 Lindblad 23   6 Tramnitz 21   7 Mansell 20   8 van Hoepen 18   9 Boya 17   10 Meguetounif 13

Formula 2

Saturdays F2 sprint race saw Frenchman Isack Hadjar win his first race in the championship. However, hours after the race it was determined that he was at fault for an incident on lap one, and so was handed a post race penalty that saw him drop down to 6th.

Starting from 8th for the feature race it seemed like he would be able to do little more than score a few points, however, as always, Formula 2 surprised us with a chaotic Feature race.

The race would get underway with Norway’s Dennis Hauger leading from Mercedes F1 prospect Kimi Antionelli. The two would battle for the lead, with Hauger pitting on lap 9 as Hadjar stayed out, going long on his first stint.

The polesitter’s day was over shortly afterwards though, as he crashed at Turn 6 to bring out the Virtual Safety Car on Lap 11.

This gave Hadjar the chance to get a cheap pit stop, coming out ahead of Antionelli in 8th.

Racing would resume on lap 15 with Kush Maini leading, however he still had to make a pit stop leaving Hadjar as the effective leader of the race.

Antionelli would slip back, being passed by Paul Aron and Championship leader Zane Maloney who both improved to the podium at the expense of Antionelli.

But it was second time lucky for Hadjar who held off Aron take win the Feature race, taking 25 points to add to his title challenge.

This win moves him into 4th in the standings behind Hauger, while another podium for Aron sees him improve to 2nd behind Zane Maloney.

Full Results :

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Isack Hadjar	Campos Racing	56m42.116s
2	Paul Aron	Hitech GP	+4.454s
3	Zane Maloney	Rodin Motorsport	+9.649s
4	Andrea Kimi Antonelli	Prema	+12.990s
5	Ritomo Miyata	Rodin Motorsport	+13.652s
6	Richard Verschoor	Trident	+18.059s
7	Franco Colapinto	MP Motorsport	+19.741s
8	Rafael Villagomez	Van Amersfoort Racing	+23.600s
9	Victor Martins	ART Grand Prix	+25.080s
10	Ollie Bearman	Prema	+29.442s
11	Jak Crawford	DAMS	+31.199s
12	Amaury Cordeel	Hitech GP	+33.841s
13	Kush Maini	Invicta Racing	+34.041s
14	Pepe Marti	Campos Racing	+34.594s
15	Juan Manuel Correa	DAMS	+41.772s
16	Roman Stanek	Trident	+58.194s
17	Taylor Barnard	PHM Racing	+59.319s
18	Enzo Fittipaldi	Van Amersfoort Racing	+1m09.169s
Ret	Dennis Hauger	MP Motorsport
Ret	Gabriel Bortoleto	Invicta Racing
Ret	Joshua Duerksen	PHM Racing
Ret	Zak O’Sullivan	ART Grand Prix
Fastest lap: Crawford, 1m30.961s Championship standings: 1 Maloney 62   2 Aron 48   3 Hauger 41   4 Hadjar 34   5 Maini 33   6 Fittipaldi 32   7 Marti 26   8 Crawford 24   9 Antonelli 24   10 Colapinto 19

Formula one

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen took a third consecutive pole position on Saturday. Lining up alongside him would be the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, who returned to F1 this weekend after undergoing surgery to remove his appendix and missing the previous round in Jeddah.

Verstappen would get the jump on Sainz, leading into turn one as we settled in for another dull race dominated by Verstappen, or so well thought.

A mistake for Max opened the door for Sainz, the Spaniard taking the lead on the second lap. But Verstappen remained within DRS range of Sainz and looked to take back the lead on lap 4.

However, eagle eyed spectators would’ve noticed smoke coming from Verstappen’s rear right tyre, with Verstappen coming on the radio reporting “I have smoke, fire, fire, brake, my brake,”.

Redbull’s fears were confirmed when Verstappen came into the pits to retire on lap 4, ending a 43 race finishing streak, his first dnf since he retired from the Australian grand prix in 2022 in a similar manner.

This left Sainz in 1st place, ahead of Norris, Leclerc, Piastry and the remaining Redbull of Sergio Perez in 5th.

On lap 16 Lewis Hamilton became the second retirement of the race as his Mercedes suffered an engine failure, bringing to an end what was a pretty disappointing weekend from the soon to be Ferrari driver.

Back in front, current Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz was still leading, with his teammate Charles Leclerc now in second as the race settled down.

After pitting for a fresh set of tyres, the remaining Mercedes of George Russel was now chasing down Fernando Alonso for 6th place in the dying stages of the race. On the last lap he managed to break into DRS range of the Aston Martin but got a little to close in turn 6, sliding off and hitting the barrier, concluding a miserable weekend for the silver arrows.

This crash saw the race end under the virtual safety car, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz taking just his third victory in Formula one, as he led home a Ferrari 1-2 with Lando Norris picking up the final spot on the podium.

Oscar Piastry would finish 4th in his home race ahead of Sergio Perez, a disappointing race for the Mexican having failed to get his Redbull anywhere near the podium.

Yuki Tsunoda finished 7th for RB, taking home some well needed points while Alonso received a 20 second penalty post race for the incident with Russel, dropping him down to 8th.

Russel’s crash also promoted Haas driver Kevin Magnussen into the points behind his teammate in 9th, securing the teams first double points finish since Austria in 2022.

Race Results:

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	58	1:20:26.843	25
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	58	+2.366s	19
3	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	58	+5.904s	15
4	81	Oscar Piastri	MCLAREN MERCEDES	58	+35.770s	12
5	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT	58	+56.309s	10
6	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	58	+93.222s	8
7	22	Yuki Tsunoda	RB HONDA RBPT	58	+95.601s	6
8	14	Fernando Alonso	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	58	+100.992s	4
9	27	Nico Hulkenberg	HAAS FERRARI	58	+104.553s	2
10	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	57	+1 lap	1
11	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	57	+1 lap	0
12	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RB HONDA RBPT	57	+1 lap	0
13	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPINE RENAULT	57	+1 lap	0
14	77	Valtteri Bottas	KICK SAUBER FERRARI	57	+1 lap	0
15	24	Zhou Guanyu	KICK SAUBER FERRARI	57	+1 lap	0
16	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	57	+1 lap	0
17	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	56	DNF	0
NC	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	15	DNF	0
NC	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT

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