Rating teams in Australia | Aston Martin should be ashamed

For Ferrari, it was of course a great weekend due to the victory of Charles Leclerc. The Italian racing team managed to trump Red Bull Racing on all fronts, but it wasn't a maximum score for Mattia Binotto's team. On Saturday there were problems with the starter which resulted in an angry Sainz. A day later, the Spaniard was put on hard tyres at the start and although his slide into the gravel can be blamed on Sainz himself, in the end it was not the best strategic choice by Ferrari either.

The third retirement for a Red Bull in as many races. Max Verstappen seemed to be on his way to an important 18 points in the battle for the world championship, but problems with the fuel system resulted in another DNF. Sergio Perez still finished unthreatened in a decent second place to limit the damage.

Once again Mercedes took advantage of an ailing Red Bull. In Bahrain, they grabbed a podium with Lewis Hamilton and this weekend it was George Russell's turn to finish third. The German formation once again managed to maximise and did not even have to concede that much to Red Bull, although according to Helmut Marko and Christian Horner that was mainly due to the fact that the setup of the RB18 was not good. However, it does not take away from the fact that Mercedes' deficit to Ferrari remains large.

A lot has changed at McLaren in the past two weeks. The Woking-based racing team started the season dramatically in Bahrain, followed by the first signs of recovery in Jeddah and in Melbourne Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo were back on top with fifth and sixth places. For McLaren, it will be a case of keeping this momentum going towards Imola and perhaps creeping even closer to Mercedes.

Fernando Alonso was on his way to a spot on the second row of the grid in Q3 Saturday, but a problem with the hydraulics prevented that. It was not the first time an Alpine had to stop by the side of the road with breakdowns. On Sunday, Alonso had bad luck with the timing of safety cars, failing to achieve a place in the top-ten. A shame, because according to the Spaniard, he had the speed to finish third in Australia. Esteban Ocon finished in a neat seventh place.

For AlphaTauri, it hasn't quite been the year they had hoped for. They are competitive, but really good results are lacking and they are often not caught by the television cameras. Pierre Gasly did well with a ninth place, while Yuki Tsunoda failed to impress with a P15. AlphaTauri is a bit anonymous in 2022 and compared to last season.

What Alfa Romeo is showing this year is very encouraging and again it had a double points finish within reach. However, Alexander Albon prevented Zhou from driving into the points for the second time this year. Bottas, however, did finish in the points and so team boss Frederic Vasseur has again achieved his objective.

Haas F1 shone in the first Grand Prix of the season and also in Saudi Arabia the American racing stable looked great. At Albert Park, unfortunately, there were no points for Mick Schumacher or Kevin Magnussen. The speed was not bad, but no doubt they will have hoped for more.

Williams grabbed its first point of the year thanks to Albon. With a bold strategy of covering all but one lap on the hard tyre, Albon managed to cross the finish line in tenth place. The out of the box thinking paid off and the Williams strategists can be proud of that. However, this does not take away from the fact that everyone at Williams had hoped that they could have competed structurally for the points at the beginning of this year.

Well, the story is known. What more should we say about it. Aston Martin is the only Formula 1 formation still without a point and although there is still plenty of time to make progress, things are not looking too good for the men led by Lawrence Stroll at the moment.