Winners and losers from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix (Albert Park)

George Russell, unsurprisingly, tops PlanetF1.com’s list of Winners from Australia, but who else stood out or dropped the ball in Melbourne?

Here is PlanetF1.com’s full list of winners and losers from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix.

Winners and losers from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix

Winner: George Russell and Mercedes

Having spent his winter practicing his poker face in the mirror, George Russell delivered upon his favourites tag in Australia as he turned up the wick exactly when needed throughout the weekend.

Taking pole position by almost three-tenths of a second, and eight-tenths clear of the next-closest car, it was an imperious qualifying performance on Saturday.

The start of the race threatened Russell’s win, as he was one of several drivers caught out by battery preparation on the formation lap and lined up with no juice in the tank for the initial launch.

But Russell was effortlessly straight back onto the back on Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and, while there was some back-and-forth as Russell couldn’t quite manage to keep the Monegasque behind him as the pair cycled through their battery deployment, there was a sense of inevitability that the British driver would come out on top.

His pace superiority was most apparent in the closing laps when, despite being on hard tyres 17 laps older than Leclerc’s, Russell kept pumping in laptimes of late 1:22s and early 1:23s, identical pace to what the Ferrari driver was managing.

Of course, Kimi Antonelli was similarly impressive, with the Italian driver recovering from a bad start to finish in second, just three seconds behind his teammate.

But it was Russell who had the clear edge throughout the weekend and, with his far greater experience and race wisdom, the British driver looks to be the man to beat for the title.

Not that leading the world championship for the first time in his career is something he’s giving much thought to.

“It just feels like another race win, to be honest,” he said.

“I mean, we’re race one into a very long season. Of course, I want to fight for race wins week in, week out, but we’re all here now to fight for a World Championship, and that’s what we’ve been working so hard towards.

“And if we want to do that, we still need to raise our game because there were a lot of areas today that we underachieved, mainly around the race start, having the battery in the right place, and we were lucky not to come off worse.”

Having needed to keep his patience during the first years of his career, and keep his head in the face of the possibility of being usurped by Max Verstappen last year, Russell is now in the position most drivers usually can only dream of: the fastest car in F1, a teammate who perhaps isn’t quite ready for a title challenge, and a batch of rivals who aren’t quite on your level.

As for Mercedes, having finally shaken off those pesky ground-effect regulations, the Brackley-based squad has picked up where it left off from the previous regulation cycle by slotting in again right at the front.

The smiley Toto Wolff of yesteryear is back, and Mercedes look every bit as formidable as it was at the start of the hybrid era in 2014.

Loser: Aston Martin

Of course, there’s nothing surprising about how Aston Martin’s weekend went in Australia, apart from maybe the fact that the team actually got far further into the race than expected from an external perspective.

Fernando Alonso’s pace proved quite a positive surprise on Saturday as he almost made it into Q2, capitalising on the substantial aero upgrades introduced on the AMR26, but the expected mechanical troubles on the power unit side were inevitable on Sunday.

Some speculation had hinted Adrian Newey’s team could even choose to do the bare minimum; qualify for the race and withdraw at the end of the formation lap, but there was no sign of this caution as Alonso and Lance Stroll were set loose for the Grand Prix.

Alonso rose as high as 10th place at the start, underlining his usual prowess in battle, but the race turned into nothing more than a test session for the two drivers as they ‘retired’ and then reappeared on track to get more laps on the board.

In the end, Honda believes it has now got a much better handle on reliability from where it was in Bahrain testing.

“We were able to see that our power unit countermeasures worked in race conditions when we ran in the grand prix without reliability issues,” Shintaro Orihara said.

” This improvement has been significant if you look at where we were in Bahrain compared to where we are now.

“This event was extremely important for us to check battery reliability. We can see from our data that the battery vibrations have continued to decrease, and we are now confident we are on track to complete a full race distance.

“In this aspect, we are on the right trajectory, and we need to keep up this momentum. Every lap we can complete is vital for our PU data gathering, so the hard work and maximum effort will only continue as we move forward.

“Next week in China, we are now confident to build up more mileage on the battery. We will focus on putting in the laps and gathering data to improve our performance and optimise our energy management.”

But while there are green shoots of progress, it’s only because of how low a bar Aston Martin has at the moment to measure its progress. The likes of Cadillac may be ultimately slower over a lap, but it’s clear there is some potential in the AMR26.

Its failure to come anywhere near to cashing in on that potential means it can only be a loser at this point, despite having an unexpectedly more positive weekend overall than might have been anticipated.

At a broader level, Newey’s willingness to continuously point to Honda as being the culprit, with withering comments such as “the original group had gone to work on solar panels or whatever”, may come back to bite him.

While Honda has held its hands up over its own shortcomings, Newey’s ushering of them into the stockades is very much the opposite of the usual diplomatic sheen that most team bosses paint over everything. For now, Honda is grinning and bearing it, but will there be a point at which it becomes needlessly antagonistic?

Winner: Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari

Ferrari did exactly what was expected at the race start as Leclerc vaulted off the line from fourth place to take the lead, while Lewis Hamilton climbed from seventh to join the leading duo in battle in the early stages.

Leclerc gave it as good as he got against Russell, but any slim chance of beating the Mercedes fell apart when the Scuderia channelled their inner McLaren-2025-Qatar-GP selves by completely ignoring two chances to pit under the Virtual Safety Car and knock 10 seconds from their race time.

Both Leclerc and Hamilton drove strongly, with the seven-time F1 World Champion showing a level of comfort and speed relative to his teammate that was invisible throughout last year.

It’s in this relative improvement that Hamilton earns himself that extra little bit of recognition on this occasion, given that Leclerc performed at his usual top level to maximise what was possible.

But his return to form also may indicate that Hamilton simply was unable to adjust to a regulation set over the past four years; such a failure to adjust to a car is seen by some as meaning Sebastian Vettel was a ‘one-trick pony’ as he won all his titles in an Adrian Newey-designed car.

Does that mean that Hamilton is ‘just’ a Vettel who secured more success before being exposed by a regulation set not to his liking, now that this change in regulations suggests the seven-time F1 World Champion was simply undone by an inability to adapt?

Or (I may need to go into hiding after this one), does his upswing in form have anything to do with the requirements of the new regulations, in that sheer raw pace is no longer required to the same degree as in the past?

As for Ferrari, the SF-26 and its power unit look like a clear step forward in competitiveness from last year, marking a second consecutive major rules change that has resulted in the Scuderia being at or near the front from the off. Understanding regulation resets is clearly not an issue for Ferrari, but it’s in development and operations that it usually slips.

Australia showed some of that trademark operational looseness, with the team going against the VSC pitstop opportunity, but it’s a positive start overall in F1 2026 for Fred Vasseur’s crew.

Loser: Williams

After getting its season back on track with a stellar effort across the two Bahrain tests, Williams had a difficult weekend to kick off the new season.

Qualifying 15th and racing to 12th, Albon admitted that the current performance level is “painful for sure” and suggested the team needs to find half a second of pace in order to be fully in the midfield battle, as well as figure out how to reduce the speed with which the car is graining its tyres.

Carlos Sainz suffered from a ‘backing off’ front wing issue, which he explained has been loitering since testing, in which the front wing lost balance when using straight-line mode, necessitating a change of wing due to how undrivable the car became.

Towards the end of the race, Williams turned Sainz’s afternoon into a test, pitting him for a normal front wing, which resulted in everything becoming “normal” again.

“The aero is nothing special,” was Sainz’s summary. “I expected a lot more from the car and from our potential”.

Lots of work ahead for James Vowles’ crew, particularly after Audi and Racing Bulls showed stronger pace than was perhaps anticipated after testing.

More from the Australian Grand Prix

Ferrari strategy call scrutinised as Russell leads Mercedes 1-2 in Australia

Lando Norris brands F1 2026 cars ‘even worse’ in races after Melbourne opener

Winner: Ollie Bearman/Haas

Having finished his rookie season strongly, Haas’ star pupil Oliver Bearman raced to seventh place on Sunday as he starts to develop a reputation for himself as being a very canny operator in the upper midfield.

He’d dropped from 12th to 13th on the opening lap, but did what Ferrari didn’t by taking the second opportunity to pit under the VSC when it was used on Lap 18, having climbed through the order by staying out during the initial VSC.

The swap to the hard tyre resulted in a one-stop race, coming out in eighth place, from where he set off in pursuit of Arvid Lindblad to take seventh.

Having been ahead of Bearman on the opening lap, Esteban Ocon suffered a “frustrating” race in which he said it was like a “flashback to last year, when things weren’t working well”.

Ocon suggested that his car lacked the understeering stability that Bearman’s car had, which is more difficult to make work in race conditions.

For the French driver’s sake, he must ensure he’s not shown up by his inexperienced teammate in their second season together, or he could face some very uncomfortable pressure later in the season, regardless of the reasons for finishing behind.

Loser: The new F1 regulations

There’s no denying that the new regulations have taken a drubbing over the first weekend of the season, as the stark reality of the driving techniques needed to be efficient, rather than fast, played out.

Qualifying has turned into a rather farcical display, with the cars so energy-starved that the straight-line speed and onboard audio taper off so dramatically that it actually sounds like the car is breaking down.

Gone are the days of hustling and pushing the limits of adhesion and physics; now it’s time for the days of restraint and management.

Of course, there won’t be much criticism from those who can smell a title, but the dam of discontent has started to break for most of the rest of the drivers. Even Lando Norris has completely changed his tune since the first Bahrain test, saying that the cars are “even worse” in race trim than in qualifying.

What the race exposed was that on-track action is possible: the cars appeared able to follow each other with greater ease as the leading duo (and, later, quartet) all raced each other during the first fifth of the race.

But that battling had an air of chaotic superficiality to it, a scrap with no sense of import, simply due to it being a case of the cars powering past each other in straight lines, completely dependent on their state of energy deployment, rather than driver skill.

After all, it’s worth remembering that the ultimate forward momentum of the cars down the straights is no longer fully dictated by the driver, meaning overtakes for the sake of overtakes barely rate above banality, particularly with late braking being punished almost immediately down the next straight.

Despite having a front row seat for the battling, Leclerc was underwhelmed by the whole display.

“Honestly, at the start, I don’t think any of us knew what to expect with the fights, with the energy, and then it’s even more tricky, for the overtakes, to defend,” he said.

“You don’t really know when your engine, your battery, is going to cut in the straight, so while defending, there’s massive speed differences.

“I just think that it will definitely change the way we go about racing and overtaking.

“Before, it was more about who was the bravest at braking the latest. Maybe now there’s a bit more of a strategic mind behind every move you make because every boost button activation, you know you’re going to pay the price big time after that, and so you always try and think multiple steps ahead to try and end up eventually first.”

Australia suggested there is hope for the new regulations if surface-level overtaking is the be-all and end-all of what one wants in terms of sporting entertainment, but did little to change the picture that driver skill and raw speed have been superseded by their ability to conserve and manage.

Winner: Gabriel Bortoleto and Audi

Not a perfect weekend for Audi, given the technical problems that hit Gabriel Bortoleto at the end of Q2 and wrecked his Q3, while Nico Hulkenberg was knocked out of the race even before it began as he suffered an issue en route to the grid.

But, with a brand-new power unit in the back of his car for its first-ever race, Bortoleto delivered the race Audi needed to get off the line with points this year, leaving him and team boss Jonatan Wheatley beaming after the chequered flag after claiming ninth-place.

“We came here feeling reasonably confident in terms of the performance of the car, but if you’d have said to me, I could swap anything and give you P9 in the race, I would have taken your hand off earlier in the week,” the team boss said.

“It’s been a very encouraging first race of a team, a historic moment. The Audi Formula 1 car scored points in its first-ever race.

“I feel the yin and yang that the other driver didn’t get a chance to start the race, but I think, all in all, we can hold our heads up high and say it’s a good start to our journey.”

Winner: Arvid Lindblad/Isack Hadjar/Red Bull Powertrains

With both Red Bull drivers starting the race with no battery power, and Liam Lawson struggling to get his Racing Bulls off the line (kudos to Franco Colapinto for avoiding him with a sensational save!), Arvid Lindblad was the only one of the four Red Bull Powertrains-powered drivers to make a good start.

Indeed, so good was Lindblad’s start that he found himself in fourth place a few hundred metres into his debut, tucked in under the rear wing of Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.

From there, the rookie put in an assured drive that even saw him briefly hold off Max Verstappen’s recovery, but he was powerless to stop the Dutch driver from eventually getting past while, later in the race, Bearman demoted him down to eighth overall.

He said after the race he felt he’d maximised all his opportunities, and that he hadn’t made any mistakes through the weekend. Lawson’s race was largely undone by the poor start, which he explained as being down to an apparent technical gremlin as he lost power for circa five seconds before it all returned.

With Lindblad and Verstappen each scoring points for their respective teams, RBPT joins Audi in being a brand-new PU manufacturer and making it into the points, an astonishing achievement for a project that started off as a side-project in an industrial estate during Christian Horner’s tenure as team boss at Red Bull.

It wasn’t all perfect for RBPT, with the startline battery depletion not being down to driver oversight but rather something procedural on the formation lap, while Isack Hadjar’s smoky breakdown appeared to suggest something had gone wrong internally.

Hadjar looks to have taken to Red Bull with aplomb, having been eyeing up a potential podium spot at the time of his issue, capitalising on his third-place grid slot.

It’s been a long time since the second Red Bull driver has been able to join in the fight near the front, and Hadjar has already shown that he might just be the man to finally provide capable support to Verstappen, while being a threat to the front-running positions in his own right.

Loser: Oscar Piastri

As one of the most likeable characters on the grid, it was heartbreaking to see Piastri’s home race come to an end before it had even started.

Indicative of the trickiness of the new cars and their power delivery, the Australian simply lost control of his MCL40 over the kerbs at Turn 4 and ploughed into the wall.

In a heartbeat, all the promise and excitement of basking in the adulation of his home crowd came to an end in one moment of unpredicted wheelspin, and, instead, was replaced by the sadness and embarrassment of going back to face family and friends back in the pits for a consolatory pick-me-up.

With McLaren not at the level of Mercedes at the start of this new regulation cycle, whether that be on the power unit or aerodynamics side, the realisation that McLaren wins aren’t likely for the moment, and a title may be completely out of reach, may have hit all the harder with the impact against the wall.

Piastri is getting used to dealing with disappointment, and retirements like Sunday’s are as hard-hitting in their suddenness as the slow bleed of seeing a title bid slip through your fingers over multiple weekends.

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