Max Verstappen wins, Oliver Bearman seventh on debut

Sainz was withdrawn from the event with appendicitis on Friday evening (AEDT), which allowed Bearman – who had earlier taken pole position for the F2 race – to become the first driver to make his F1 debut with Ferrari since 1972.

Bearman started 11th and kept his nose relatively clean in the early running. 

A safety car called when Lance Stroll crashed on lap seven triggered a flurry of pit stops, including for Bearman.

The young Brit restarted 12th and got past the RB of Yuki Tsunoda immediately into turn one. He breezed past the Sauber of Zhou Guanyu and the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg not long after.

He would effectively remain there for the rest of the race and made up the extra two places when Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris, who didn’t pit under the safety car, made their stops to change tyres.

“Take a bow, young man. What a race that was,” Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft quipped as Bearman crossed the line.

Several of his rivals – including the Mercedes pair of countrymen Hamilton and George Russell – made an effort to congratulate Bearman in parc ferme after the race.

He was greeted in the garage with a warm hug from his dad.

“It feels like a dream,” Bearman said on Sky Sports F1.

“It was a great race and I loved every moment of it. The weekend was too short.”

Sainz underwent surgery on Saturday morning (AEDT) and was watching the race from the Ferrari garage. He was walking incredibly gingerly, and is in some doubt to race in Australia.

“Carlos is looking well, and I’m glad he’s making a good recovery,” Bearman said.

“At the end it’s not my decision to make. If he feels good – and I hope he does – he’ll be in Melbourne. 

“It’s his car, it’s his championship.”

The stunning performance will all but guarantee Bearman – already considered one of the hottest young prospects – is on the grid full-time in 2025.

Stroll buried his Aston Martin in the tyre barrier at turn 23 after clipping the inside wall at the previous bend, which broke his steering.

There was a chuckle-worthy radio transmission following the crash. Perhaps not realising Stroll had crashed as hard as he had, his race engineer asked if he could drive the car back to the pits.

“No, I’m in the f–king wall,” came Stroll’s blunt response from the cockpit. He was uninjured.

It was Verstappen’s 100th podium in F1, and his ninth consecutive race victory stretching back to the Japanese Grand Prix last September. Sergio Perez was second with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc third.

Piastri backed his fifth place in Bahrain with a fourth in Saudi Arabia. He sits fifth in the drivers standings.

The Aussie started fifth and got past Fernando Alonso into turn one at the start of the second tour. He lost a chunk of time behind Hamilton in the middle of the race, but given the pace of the Ferrari in front, it’s unlikely to have cost him a podium.

Piastri said “chopping [his] rear wing off” would’ve been the only thing that would’ve helped in his battle to get past Hamilton.

“That probably would have helped, but apart from that, I think just didn’t quite have enough straight line speed to to do anything,” he told Sky Sports F1.

“I think the last corner as well is not one of our strongest, so you put both of those together, and you end up stuck behind Lewis for a long time.

“I think Mercedes were also one of the the quickest cars in a straight line this weekend which made life much tougher than I wanted it to.”

The F1 circus reconvenes in Piastri’s home town of Melbourne in a fortnight. He said the team is in a far stronger position heading Down Under than they were 12 months ago.

He said a podium is a possibility, but would need some luck to go his way.

No Aussie has officially stood on the podium in their home grand prix since it joined the World Championship in Adelaide 1986.

Daniel Ricciardo finished second on the road in 2014, but was later disqualified over a technical breach.

“If a couple of cars don’t finish the race, then maybe,” Piastri said of his home podium chances.

“I think fourth tonight was honestly the most we could have done. We had some good fortune in Melbourne [last year] … but I think we’re definitely stronger than the last time we went to Melbourne, so hopefully we can have a good race at home.”

Daniel Ricciardo had a disappointing race, finishing 16th. He suffered a clumsy spin with a handful of laps to go, and finished two places behind teammate Yuki Tsunoda.