What just happened?
That’s the question the 131,124 people packed into Albert Park — and the millions watching at home around the world — were asking on lap 57 of 58 of the Australian Grand Prix as cars careered into each other like balls in a pinball machine, turning to farce what had previously been shaping up to be a straightforward Max Verstappen victory.
The chaos started on lap 53. Kevin Magnussen was the accidental instigator.
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The Dane carried a little too much speed through the first turn and bumped the wall on exit with his rear-left wheel. The Pirelli tyre popped off the rim and landed on the track, and Magnussen pulled his car to a stop.
The safety car was called — so far so good.
But when race control got a better look at the track, the race director decided that there was too much debris on the circuit to clear behind a safety car in the limited laps remaining.
A red flag was waved on lap 55 of 58.
Resuming a race after a red flag consumes one racing lap to get the cars to the grid for a standing restart or to the start-finish straight in the event of a rolling restart.
That meant only two true racing laps remained in the race — laps 57 and 58.
The order of this restart was as follows:
1. Max Verstappen
2. Lewis Hamilton
3. Fernando Alonso
4. Carlos Sainz
5. Pierre Gasly
6. Lance Stroll
7. Sergio Perez
8. Lando Norris
9. Nico Hülkenberg
10. Esteban Ocon
11. Oscar Piastri
12. Zhou Guanyu
13. Yuki Tsunoda
14. Valtteri Bottas
15. Logan Sargeant
16. Nyck de Vries
SEVEN SENT SPINNING FROM RESTART | 01:16
Here’s where things started to get messy — on and off the track.
With cold tyres and brakes on a cooling track and with the setting sun in their eyes and the prospect of an all-or-nothing two-lap race in front of them, the drivers instigated chaos.
Perez was off the track completely at turn 1 and rejoined exiting turn 2 and just about managed to avoid another car.
Pierre Gasly followed him across the gravel but wasn’t so lucky rejoining — he smashed teammate Esteban Ocon against the wall exiting turn 2, putting them both out of the race.
Further back Carlos Sainz tipped Fernando Alonso into a spin — remember this for later — and then Lance Stroll went deep and into the gravel at turn 3.
And at the back of the pack Logan Sargeant punted Nyck de Vries into the stones at turn 1, ending both their afternoons.
Race control flew the red flag again, this time with the cars in a completely different order:
1. Max Verstappen
2. Lewis Hamilton
3. Carlos Sainz
4. Nico Hülkenberg
5. Yuki Tsunoda
6. Lando Norris
7. Oscar Piastri
8. Zhou Guanyu
9. Valtteri Bottas
10. Sergio Perez
11. Fernando Alonso
12. Lance Stroll
Russell ‘screwed’ in unlucky early pit! | 01:04
Gasly, Ocon, De Vries and Sargeant were stopped on track.
Just one lap remained on the lap counter — but remember the rules for restarting a race? One lap is required just to get the cars into a position to restart before any racing takes place.
At this point it was clear that the race was finished, with the cars just needing to cross the line in formation finish, without overtaking, to make it official — albeit with the massive caveat that no-one knew what the order was.
Because lap 57 wasn’t fully completed before racing was called off with the red flag, there was no official race order. The list of cars immediately above, as they entered the pit lane, wasn’t official.
According to the sporting regulations, “the order will be taken at the last point at which it was possible to determine the position of all cars”.
This is potentially open to interpretation, however, considering there are several points around the lap at which the FIA collects timing data, not just the start-finish line or the three sector lines.
However, race control determined that the last point at which an order could be fairly established was the end of lap 56 — the lap to the grid for that ill-fated restart.
With four cars crashed out of the race since then, the order was as follows:
1. Max Verstappen
2. Lewis Hamilton
3. Fernando Alonso
4. Carlos Sainz
(13) Pierre Gasly
5. Lance Stroll
6. Sergio Perez
7. Lando Norris
8. Nico Hülkenberg
(14) Esteban Ocon
9. Oscar Piastri
10. Zhou Guanyu
11. Yuki Tsunoda
12. Valtteri Bottas
(15) Nyck de Vries
(16) Logan Sargeant
Leclerc RETIRED in first lap CHAOS | 01:07
The four cars that did not finish were still classified in positions 13 to 16 because they completed more than 90 per cent of the race distance — more than 52 laps — despite not taking the chequered flag.
Kevin Magnussen was classified 17th for that same reason, having crashed on his 53rd tour. De Vries was classified ahead of Sargeant because the Williams car was declared stopped first.
So finally we had the order in which the cars would restart the race — ‘restart’ being a loose word, as they only had to follow the safety car out of pit lane and then take the chequered flag without passing.
However, there was one final twist: Sainz was slapped with a five-second penalty for hitting Alonso at that notorious restart. Because the cars were so close to each other as they crossed the line, the penalty demoted him to 12th — last among the finishers but ahead of the cars that crashed.
While the logic makes sense according to the regulations, the finish to the Australian Grand Prix will raise questions about whether late-race restarts are safe or even efficient ways to end grands prix — particularly in the case of standings restarts, which elevate risk considerably and led to on-track chaos and off-track confusion.
