How the Australian Grand Prix was a baptism of fire for F1's six rookies

Formula 1’s rookie crop of 2025 faced the worst possible scenario in the Australian Grand Prix, with rain hitting the track just hours before the start of the race.

No driver had completed any wet-weather running at Melbourne in the run-up to Sunday, while whatever experience they accumulated in the rain during last month’s Bahrain test counted for little.

Some full-season rookies like Liam Lawson and Oliver Bearman had already competed in wet races during their previous appearances in F1, but the Melbourne event nevertheless proved to be a major challenge for everyone on the grid.

Even Fernando Alonso, the most experienced driver ever in F1’s history with over 400 starts, binned his car on intermediate tyres in the middle of the race, so one can only imagine how difficult it was for rookies to stay on the road when the track was much wetter at either end of the race.

Some other championships hold a short warm-up on Sunday morning to allow drivers - or riders - to experience the conditions they are likely to face in the race, but F1 axed that session from its weekend schedule in 2003.

This meant the 20 drivers on the grid, including the six rookies, were venturing into uncharted waters on Sunday afternoon.

The first rookie to get it wrong was Racing Bulls’ new signing Isack Hadjar, who has stepped up to the grand prix grid this year after finishing runner-up to Gabriel Bortoleto in last year’s F2 title fight.

Hadjar was trying to warm up his tyres on the formation lap when the rear of his VCARB 02 snapped, sending him rear-first into the barriers at Turn 2. Given it was the first real acceleration zone after a braking point, it seems the 20-year-old didn’t fully understand just how little grip the track had to offer at that point.

The French-Algerian driver was visibly distraught after the shunt and will now have to wait for next week’s Chinese GP to make his first official start in F1.

Alpine’s Jack Doohan was able to line up on the grid for the (delayed) start to the race, but his Australian GP appearance was also short-lived.

On the opening lap, Doohan ran over the painted white lines at Turn 1 and couldn’t prevent his car from smashing into the barriers. The damage sustained to the Alpine was too significant for him to continue, with a safety car being deployed to assist the retrieval of his stricken car.

The timing of the incident couldn’t have been worse for Doohan, who is already under pressure to justify his place in F1. Williams’ reserve driver Franco Colapinto has been tipped to take Doohan’s seat as early as the seventh round of the season, should the latter not be able to get immediately up to pace in F1.

Meanwhile, Sauber’s Bortoleto did a fine job of keeping his car on the road in the early wet laps and again the middle portion of the race, when the track was dry enough for the entire field to switch to slick rubber.

However, things went awry for him shortly after he had pitted to revert to intermediate tyres late in the race.

The Brazilian driver spun exiting Turn 12 and crashed sideways into the wall, bringing a premature end to the race. It’s possible that the crash was caused by a suspension failure, rather than driver error.

Kiwi driver Lawson also crashed out of the Australian GP at the end of a difficult first race weekend with Red Bull.

With 11 race starts prior to 2025, Lawson isn’t exactly an F1 rookie, but preparations for his maiden weekend with Red Bull were severely compromised by an engine issue that forced him to miss the entire FP3.

Having already qualified at the back of the grid due to a late error in Q1, Red Bull made some late changes to his car under parc ferme, forcing him to start from the pitlane.

The 23-year-old spent the first part of the race battling with the two Haas cars at the back of the pack and, while he was able to overtake both Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon, he wasn’t able to progress further up the road.

While even a race finish would have been encouraging given the conditions, Lawson crashed at Turn 2 during the second bout of rain, shortly after getting a fresh set of intermediate tyres on his Red Bull.

The incident was very similar to the one that caused a DNS for Hadjar, albeit it happened under racing speeds.

With Lawson also retiring, just two of the six rookies were able to master the conditions and reach the finish line after 57 laps of racing.

Bearman spent almost the entire race at the back and eventually wound up 14th - the last among the classified finishers - with a 40s deficit to race winner Lando Norris.

However, given how terrible his first race weekend with Haas had been until the race, it was actually a positive result for the Briton.

The 19-year-old heavily damaged his Haas in the opening practice session on Friday, missing FP2 as a result, and he ended up again in the gravel in FP3. Mechanical issues in qualifying further compromised his weekend.

The one rookie that did outperform expectations was Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who rose from 16th on the grid to finish an excellent fifth for Mercedes.

It wasn’t a perfect race for the Italian though, who had his fair share of moments in the wet, including a full spin about halfway through the race.

But he managed to avoid the barriers and bring his car home, securing important championship points for Mercedes on a day his teammate George Russell finished third.

Antonelli would have actually ended up right behind his teammate Russell in fourth, but he was handed a five-second penalty for an unsafe release in the pits.

How the 2025 Australian GP compares with last year’s Brazil race

Admittedly, the weather was a lot worse at Sao Paulo last year, to the point that the cars were almost aquaplanning off the circuit.

However, similar to Australia, it offered teams a chance to evaluate newcomers - some of whom are now making their full-season debuts in 2025 - in less-than-ideal conditions.

Bearman, substituting for Kevin Magnussen at Haas, rear-ended the Williams of Colapinto, picking up a 10-second penalty for the offence.

Colapinto later suffered such a huge shunt under the safety car at Turn 3 that it warranted a red flag.

Lawson, incredibly, was able to score some points for RB in ninth, but only after contact with the McLaren of Oscar Piastri at Senna S.