The Athletic.

The race is on, and whilst Char LeCler made it two wins out of three for Ferrari with victory in the Australian Grand Prix,

Max Verstappen made it two retirements out of three after dropping out of second place.

So does this mean we now have a clear title favourite, and why was LeCler so dominant in a race where he was expected to be given a run for his money?

By Medsture and joining me to answer those questions, and many more, are Scott Mitchell and Mark Hughes.

Well, Mark, great to be back in Australia. I say that as if I'm there.

This is one of the few races I'm not at, so I'm doing this from the UK, but you two are out there.

It was good from my end to see Australia back, given the couple of years away. So what was it

like to be there? It was wonderful. It did feel like returning to finish off, you know,

how it all ended so badly two years ago.

And it just felt like a big celebratory party because it was a beautiful weather,

fantastic crowd, and it just a beautiful sort of, not not, it wasn't like the Australian summer,

but it was a warm, a very warm, sunshiny day.

And you'd smell the grass in the air and it's just a real party atmosphere.

It was, yeah, it was lovely.

And Scott, you love a party atmosphere, so you must have had a great weekend.

Yeah, it was absolutely amazing.

And I just think F1 loved being back in Melbourne, and Melbourne

absolutely loved having F1 back. I'm sure that like there are with any city race, probably some

dissenters around the place. But I think ultimately the numbers speak for themselves and uh the official figure

was i think around 420 000 attendees over the the whole weekend which i think makes this the

the biggest weekend sporting event in australian history is obviously a couple of caveats there

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