Australian Grand Prix: F1 race updates – live! | Sport

It is built here. Verstappen tells Sky that they were just “checking some things” with the car. He just wants to have a good start, he doesn’t really think about when he’s going to make his move.

Ocon is “feeling well; Bright and sunny Australia, you can’t be in a better place. ”To be fair, I didn’t try my boxroom in north London.

“The wind is blowing a little bit,” says Daniel Ricciardo. “A little different from yesterday.” But he is quite happy with his car and pleased with the energy from the crowd. “It’s nuts,” he says. “He’s been crazy all week.”

Red Bull has “a sort of fluid leak on Max Verstappen’s car,” apparently. I don’t think it’s anything major, but it’s not helpful.

George Russell says his car is not the most comfortable to drive, but they are working as hard as they can to make things better. Dylan Alcott, meanwhile, loves the response he receives from the crowd, and has driven a two-seater F1 car, one of his best experiences. It’s been a tough couple years in Australia, he adds, so chuffed this is the first even in front of a full crowd; “He has an infernal handshake,” notes Martin Brundle.

Lando Nozzer notes that the beginning is a bit tight, that should make things harder, but it’s not too annoying that there aren’t many in front of him. Saying he is in the British Quarter makes it clear that he is ahead.

Marco Materazzi is on the track, they respond with all the joy you expect when you wait for Italy’s absence from the World Cup.

There’s really wind outside, which will increase the intensity of the slipstreams. But it doesn’t rain as dreaded.

“The problem is, when you push that car a little harder, it’s pretty despised. It’s like a viper or a rattlesnake, you never know.”

Mercedes, and Lewis Hamilton, have a problem.

It’s become fashionable to talk about things in superlatives and absolutes – things can’t just be good or bad, they have to be the best or worst, putative facts advertised in purple prose of the kind you’ve just read. But we can all agree that, without a doubt, F1 is the strangest sport in the world, as illustrated by the end of last season and the beginning of it.

Consequently, it is not easy to make a reading of what we are about to see. The best driver could win, the best car could win, or someone at the back could crash, leading to a concertinaed field and one last free turn for everyone, because our tiny minds can only cope with things that are well packed. Sorry, the best packed stuff of all time, in the world … ever!

However, today’s race and possibly the next ones represent a chance for riders not named Lewis or Max. Between them, Hamilton and Verstappen have won 15 of last season’s 22 races, but things may be different this way, their cars don’t yet have that kind of standard. As such, Messrs. Leclerc, Pérez and Sainz Jr have the opportunity to do damage – damage of the kind they could not have anticipated – and they will take their chances here as well. That must be a good thing.

Light off: 15 local time, 6 hours BST