PACE DEBRIEF: McLaren hold a sizeable advantage, Ferrari achieve worst season start since 2009

Following the nail-biting season opener in Melbourne, F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabo analyses teams' and drivers' performance at the Australian Grand Prix.

Having lived up to the expectations from the Bahrain pre-season testing, McLaren driver Lando Norris won the Australian Grand Prix starting from pole position.

In the majority of the 57-lap race, the Briton found himself in a close fight with his team-mate Oscar Piastri for the victory, albeit a late rain shower led to a thrilling end. The weather pretty much divided the race into three parts – the first in the wet, the second in the dry and then the final part once more in the wet.

Up until half-distance it looked like McLaren were heading for a dominant one-two finish, but then at one point it seemed the win might escape them, but they still got both drivers home in the points.

Norris took the fifth win of his career and number 190 for the team run by Zak Brown and Andrea Stella, it’s twelfth victory in Australia. Norris could also take pride in taking the second hat-trick of his career, clinching the win, pole position and the fastest race lap.

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen finished second, just 0.895s behind Norris, with Mercedes driver George Russell securing third place, some 8.481s behind.

Although the Melbourne round is hardly a reference point for the rest of the season given the weather conditions that dominated the 57-lap race, the fact that McLaren appeared to be a step ahead of everyone in every condition confirms the sentiments from the pre-season testing.

Norris' lap times generated a narrow boxplot, with his average having been 0.43s quicker than what his team-mate Oscar Piastri achieved. It was mainly down to the fact that the Melbourne-born driver spent the last segment of the race in the midfield after his mistake that saw him spend almost a full minute on the grass.

Max Verstappen's average lap time was a whopping 0.6s behind Norris' average which was a consequence of his higher tyre degradation in the second half of opening stint on the intermediate tyres. The Dutchman could stay close to his championship rival from the past season in the opening part of the first stint and in the closing stages of the race, indicating that the RB21 is on pair with the McLaren on fresh tyres, but the higher tyre degradation means that while the Woking-based outfit manages to pick up the pace in the second half of the stints, Red Bull's pace significantly drops.

Interestingly, the Mercedes pair of George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli followed the trio of the quickest drivers. Both drivers had a narrower boxplot than the one of Verstappen, but they were 1.29s and 1.73s behind Norris in terms of average lap time. The Briton never looked to be able to keep up with the pace of the field-leading trio, and he could not capitalize on the safety car-induced neutralisation either.

Antonelli delivered some eye-catching overtaking manoevres in the opening part of the 57-lap Australian Grand Prix, and never made mistakes with huge consequences despite the challenging conditions.

The 18-year-old driver from Bologna capitalized on the late safety car intervention which meant that he could make up some places to put himself up the order to P5. Having completed his overtaking move on Albon, he displayed a scary pace, achieving an average lap time of 1m29.45s over the course of the last four laps while his team-mate Russell delivered an average of 1m29.725s over the last four tours of the race, which highlights the potential of the Italian sensation.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished eighth and tenth, achieving the Scuderia's worst start to a season since 2009. The dismal result was not a result of pure driver errors or strategy mistakes, the SF-25 simply lacked pace in all conditions and on every type of tyres.

Leclerc could hardly follow fourth-place Russell in the opening race, but he managed to pick up his pace as the first stint progressed and slightly reduced the gap to the Mercedes driver. His spin in the dying stages of the race and Ferrari's late tyre change meant that he dropped down to P10. His average lap time was 1.73 slower than what Norris produced.

His new team-mate Hamilton found himself stuck behind Alexander Albon for much of the opening stint, and he struggled for pace in the closing stages of the race after the rain shower. The Briton's average lap time was over two seconds per lap slower than what the race winner achieved, and Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll were fairly close to the seven-time world champion in terms of average.