The winners and losers from wild first race of new F1 era

Formula 1’s new era got off to an exciting start with an action-packed season opening Australian Grand Prix. 

After weeks of mind games, politics and conjecture, we finally got to witness the first taste of the new era of F1 as the 2026 season got underway in Australia. 

Mercedes made the perfect start as George Russell headed a 1-2 in a frenetic opening race that started off with a bang before settling down in the latter stages. 

Here are the biggest winners and losers from a wild first round in Melbourne…

Winner - Mercedes 

It’s advantage Mercedes early in 2026 after the Silver Arrows converted its front-row lockout into a comfortable one-two headed by Russell. 

After dominating qualifying, Mercedes did not have things quite so easy on race day and had to overcome an early challenge from Ferrari. Charles Leclerc overtook Russell into Turn 1 with a rocket launch, while Lewis Hamilton also applied pressure in the early stages. 

The Silver Arrows ultimately outpaced and outwitted Ferrari as its might shone through, allowing Russell to convert pole into victory and move into the lead of the world championship for the first time in his career. It may not be as significant as some suggested, but it is clear Mercedes, at least for now, has a performance advantage over the field. 

Russell lived up to his billing as the pre-season favourite by making the perfect start to his bid to become world champion as Mercedes marked its return to the front of F1 after four challenging years. 

Loser - McLaren 

After setting the benchmark in F1 with its double world championship triumph in 2025, McLaren has been brought crashing back down to earth at the start of the new rules cycle. 

McLaren thought it would be starting the year behind rivals Mercedes and Ferrari, but the deficit was much bigger than expected. Reigning world champion Lando Norris trailed Russell by over 50 seconds and was 35 seconds behind fourth-placed Hamilton on his way to a distant fifth. 

Norris, who is not enjoying the new generation of F1 cars and has been extremely damning of them, was pretty downbeat afterwards, claiming McLaren is “a very, very long way off” and has “a lot of work to do”. 

Winner - Ferrari

Off the back of a woeful 2025 season, this was a positive start for Ferrari. Despite a disappointing qualifying performance, Ferrari’s supreme race starts enabled both Leclerc and Hamilton to be in the mix during the opening laps and the SF-26 appeared to be a match for the Mercedes in the first stint. 

Ferrari’s chance of victory slipped away following its decision not to pit during two early virtual safety cars. Ferrari opted to favour track position but in hindsight it handed control of the race to Mercedes, who along with most of the field, jumped at the chance to benefit from a cheap pit stop. 

Scrutiny over its questionable strategy error aside, Ferrari has reason to be encouraged leaving Australia. It has the second fastest car and there is belief Mercedes can be reigned in, with Hamilton insisting catching his former team is “not impossible” over the coming races. 

Loser - Oscar Piastri 

For the second year running, Oscar Piastri endured heartbreak on home soil. This time, he didn’t even take the start after suffering a shock crash on his way to the grid before the race. 

Not only was this a huge disappointment at his home race, Piastri, who comes into 2026 with a point to prove after his 2025 F1 title defeat, suffered the worst possible start to his bid to get the better of McLaren team-mate Norris. 

The costly crash caught Piastri totally by surprise and further compounded a tough start to the new campaign for McLaren. 

Winner - Arvid Lindblad 

A dream start to life in F1 for 18-year-old British rookie Arvid Lindblad, who became the third youngest points scorer in history with his eighth-placed finish in Melbourne. 

This was a seriously impressive showing from Lindblad all weekend as he outpaced and outraced his more experienced Racing Bulls teammate Liam Lawson and looked well at home in F1. 

A brilliant start saw Lindblad mixing it up with the leaders on the first lap. Despite inevitably being caught by quicker cars, Red Bull’s latest exciting prodigy raced with maturity and no fear as he grabbed an excellent result on debut. 

Loser - Red Bull 

After a strong pre-season, this wasn’t the start to 2026 Red Bull had in mind. 

Max Verstappen recovered well from his shock Q1 crash and elimination to climb from 20th on the grid to sixth, but Red Bull seems to be in a fight against McLaren for third in the pecking order behind Mercedes and Red Bull. 

There was massive disappointment for Isack Hadjar, whose strong start to the race was undone when his Red Bull power unit failed on the 12th lap at Albert Park. 

However, there is some encouragement for Red Bull, with Hadjar already demonstrating promising signs he can avoid the same fate as his predecessors. 

Winner - Ollie Bearman 

An impressive under-the-radar drive from Ollie Bearman, who, overshadowed by the action at the front, quietly worked his way into the top 10 to mark a point-scoring start for Haas. 

The highly-rated Bearman started off where he left off in a strong rookie F1 season by once again getting the better of Haas team-mate Esteban Ocon, who he out-qualified convincingly. 

A great start to the season for Bearman, who continues to assume the role of Haas’s lead driver in F1. 

Loser - Williams 

Williams had a pretty anonymous race, with Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz barely getting a look in on the television coverage on their way to a low-key 12th and 15th place respectively. 

Aston Martin aside, Williams has been the biggest disappointment of 2026 so far. The FW48 is overweight and badly off the pace, with Williams slipping from the front of the midfield pack to towards the back over the winter. 

Until the weight and performance issues are addressed, points will be hard to come by for Williams. 

Winner - Gabriel Bortoleto 

Gabriel Bortoleto was the underdog star of qualifying as he reached Q3, before converting that into ninth place to put two points on the board for Audi in its maiden F1 race. 

Bortoleto’s delivery of a strong drive and result softened the blow of a technical issue preventing Nico Hulkenberg from taking the start. 

Loser - Aston Martin 

Aston Martin still has to earn a place in the ‘losers’ column purely based on its dire start to 2026 which is largely down to Honda’s reliability issues. 

However, things ended up being better than expected on race day. Fernando Alonso briefly ran as high as 10th after a remarkable start and managed 21 laps before calling it a day.

Lance Stroll completed 43 of the 58 laps, though it did require a stoppage in the garage. That gave Aston Martin more data and mileage than anticipated going into the race, but it and Honda still have huge problems to address.