Max Verstappen won a chaotic and controversial Australian Grand Prix that finished under a safety car after a controversial crash-affected restart.
The Red Bull driver led Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso home to set the podium.
That was despite Alonso being tagged into a spin at a restart with two laps to go and dropped to the back.
Governing body the FIA said the order had to be declared as at the restart for one final lap behind a safety car.
To add to the controversy, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was given a five-second penalty for causing the decisive crash at the first corner by tagging Alonso’s car, dropping him from fourth to 12th and out of the points.
An emotional Sainz described that decision as “unacceptable”, adding: “They need to wait until after the race and discuss with me. Clearly the penalty is not deserved. It is too severe.”
The Alpine drivers Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were the other big losers from the official decisions – they took the penultimate restart fifth and 10th but crashed into each other and retired at the second corner.
The unprecedented events will lead to controversy that F1 is putting showbusiness before sport.
There is a direct line from the final laps of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2021 – when officials made errors that changed the course of the world championship fight between Verstappen and Hamilton – to these events, as the final red flag was thrown to try to ensure the grand prix would finish under racing conditions.
Ironically, that desire led to the final, bizarre and confusing climax, and a race that did actually end under a safety car.
The first-corner crash led the FIA to make a decision that a lap had taken place but that most of the events during it had had no effect, other than the crash between the Alpines.
The bizarre and controversial climax
The extraordinary events at the end of a race that had already had two safety cars and a previous red flag were triggered when Kevin Magnussen’s Haas ran wide at the first chicane and tagged the wall.
The impact broke the Dane’s wheel rim, caused a puncture and left debris strewn across the track.
The timing of the incident meant that, according to the rules, there would be two racing laps after the restart.
Sainz tagged Alonso’s rear wheel and tipped the Aston Martin into a spin, triggering chaos behind.
Perez ran wide across the grass and then Gasly, appearing not to see Ocon on his outside, pushed his team-mate into the wall, taking both cars out.
The red flag was immediately thrown again and the rules dictated that the order had to be that at the restart because the field had not covered enough ground for there to be any other reference to set the start order.
That reinstated Alonso to third, despite his being dropping to the back after his collision, and Perez to fifth, after losing a lot of ground.
The Aston Martin of Lance Stroll was fourth, followed by Perez, McLaren’s Lando Norris and Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu and Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda completed the points positions.