Supreme Norris wins a chaotic Australian Grand Prix, Verstappen P2

Behind the top three, Alex Albon in the Williams took a fine P4, while Andrea Kimi Antonelli was the rookie of the day, taking a fantastic P5 in his first race in Formula 1. Lance Stroll and Nico Hulkenberg avoided the chaos to take P6 and P7, respectively, while Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top ten.

Early rain causes chaos

Sunday in Melbourne brought a huge amount of rain, with the heaviest of it occurring in the morning which resulted in the Formula 3 race being shorted, while the Formula 2 and Supercars races were both cancelled due to the conditions.

Due to the rain throughout the day, it was a slippery Albert Park circuit to start with, and rookie Isack Hadjar was unable to make it through the formation lap before his debut race was done.

The French-Alergian driver tried to put some heat into the intermediate tyres that he and the rest of the grid were starting on, but after just two corners, too much acceleration meant he spun his Racing Bulls car around, ruining his rear wing and ending his race before it even began, which also resulted in an aborted start and brought the rest of the drivers back to the starting grid.

When the race finally got underway, hometown hero Jack Doohan found out how wet the Albert Park circuit was, putting a wheel on the white-painted lines and spinning his Alpine as a result, smashing into the barriers.

Carlos Sainz also spun out before he completed his first full lap in his brand-new Williams machinery, and that brought out the first safety car of the Grand Prix.

Once the race got back underway, Norris was able to keep Verstappen behind after the race got back underway, with the Dutchman ahead of Piastri after making the move at the start of the race.

However, a rare mistake from the four-time world champion saw him go deep and lock up, resulting in a far easier pass than Piastri would have been preparing for.

McLaren team orders a talking point again

Team orders then became an issue for McLaren once again, as Piastri then started to close up to Norris, showing some great pace on the intermediate tyres.

However, at his home Grand Prix, he was told to "hold position" when within a second of his British teammate, a contradiction to what had been said by McLaren before the 2025 got underway.

Piastri stayed behind Norris and dropped back after losing some of his pace, and then when he was over two seconds behind Norris, he was told he was able to race his teammate.

Alonso crash reignites the race

A crash from the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso then saw the second safety car of the race, which saw drivers come in and change onto the slick tyres.

However, when the safety car came in, the rain returned, resulting in Oscar Piasri beaching his McLaren, and although he got it going again, he dropped to the back of the grid to the despair of the Australian fans.

The rain then resulted in the change back to wet weather tyres, and while the Ferraris decided to stay out on track and dropped back, Norris called the perfect race and came through to win a thrilling race, holding off late pressure from Verstappen.