A few laps later, Alexander Albon (Williams) slipped in one of the corners and hit the rubber wall, so the Safety Car came out again. Mercedes called Russell from the front to the pits for a tire change, but this turned out to be a bad decision a few minutes later. Because of the debris on the track, the race was interrupted with a red flag, so any car could change tires freely.
The field could continue the race after roughly 15 minutes, namely with a standing start, and after that Hamilton, Verstappen, Alonso were racing on the podium. Verstappen then very quickly and easily took the lead from Hamilton, and then Russell was forced to abandon the race due to a technical fault.
The spectators had to wait for the excitement until the end of the race, until then not much happened, but three laps before the start, the race was stopped again with a red flag. This happened because of a tire that had come off the rim and was lying on the track, so the competitors started the last two laps again with a standing start.
After the new start, collisions already occurred in the first corner and in the following straight, so a red flag interruption immediately followed, after which the competition court ordered a new start.
The order of this was the same as the previous one, but those who were eliminated were no longer allowed to stand on the grid. The field thus completed one lap behind the safety car, at the end of which the race was called off.
During the three-day program of the Australian Grand Prix, a total of 444,000 spectators visited Melbourne’s Albert Park, which is the highest number of visitors in the history of the competition.
The WC will continue in Baku at the end of April, with the Azeri Grand Prix.