Feature

F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2024 Australian GP

Logan Sargeant (Withdrawn, Did Not Start): NA/10
Obviously we can't give Logan Sargeant a rating for the weekend, because he was withdrawn after the first day, but we didn't want to overlook his contribution to how events unfolded. He actually had one of his better Friday practice outings, finishing P14 in FP1 and improving a place in FP2. More importantly, he didn't write off his car at any point - unlike his Williams team mate Alex Albon. It was a cruel reward to see him sidelined in order to save Albon's weekend. While we understand James Vowles' reasons, it's nonetheless given us a worrying behind-the-scenes look at the situation at Grove: not having a spare chassis available three races into the season is a definite concern.

Max Verstappen (Pole, Retired on lap 3, Brake fire): 7.5/10
There was something in the air in Melbourne (and we don't just mean smoke billowing from the fire from Max Verstappen's rear brakes). Red Bull just did't look their usual effortless selves. Verstappen wasn't fastest in any of the practice sessions, and even by the time it got to qualifying he was still complaining about understeer. Not that this stopped him from taking pole position, and by a fairly comfortable margin at that. Everyone who had been getting excited that Red Bull might be in for bad day at the office sighed and rolled their eyes assuming that Red Bull had been pulling off their usual sandbagging misdirection. And then the world was turned upside down as the Red Bull sent up unmistakable smoke distress signals, ending Verstappen's run of 46 consecutive race finishes. Max isn't invincible after all; who knew?

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.