{"id":526119,"date":"2026-03-10T05:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T05:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/526119\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T05:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T05:27:09","slug":"6-winners-and-5-losers-from-the-2026-australian-grand-prix-who-started-the-season-in-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/526119\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Winners and 5 Losers from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix \u2013 who started the season in style?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Mercedes lived up to their billing as pre-season favourites with a dominant performance in the season-opening Grand Prix as George Russell led home team mate Kimi Antonelli at Albert Park. But as the Silver Arrows popped the champagne, a few of their rivals couldn&#8217;t wait to move on and forget the last few days down under&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Winners: Mercedes<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\"><a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" data-f1rd-a7s-click=\"rich_text_atom_click\" data-f1rd-a7s-context=\"eyJhY3Rpb25UeXBlIjoicnVzc2VsbF9saW5rX2NsaWNrZWQiLCJjbGlja1RleHQiOnRydWUsInBhdGgiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5mb3JtdWxhMS5jb20vZW4vZHJpdmVycy9nZW9yZ2UtcnVzc2VsbCIsInBhdGhUeXBlIjoiaW50ZXJuYWwifQ==\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/george-russell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Russell<\/a> has cut a relaxed and confident figure since he realised just how good the 2026-spec <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" data-f1rd-a7s-click=\"rich_text_atom_click\" data-f1rd-a7s-context=\"eyJhY3Rpb25UeXBlIjoibWVyY2VkZXNfbGlua19jbGlja2VkIiwiY2xpY2tUZXh0Ijp0cnVlLCJwYXRoIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZm9ybXVsYTEuY29tL2VuL3RlYW1zL21lcmNlZGVzIiwicGF0aFR5cGUiOiJpbnRlcm5hbCJ9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/teams\/mercedes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercedes<\/a> was in the first few laps of pre-season testing &#8211; and he delivered on expectation in a fine way with some scintillating pace at Albert Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">His lap for pole was unreal, the Briton ending up around 0.8s clear of the next non-Mercedes car \u2013 and while he battled <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" data-f1rd-a7s-click=\"rich_text_atom_click\" data-f1rd-a7s-context=\"eyJhY3Rpb25UeXBlIjoiY2hhcmxlc19sZWNsZXJjX2xpbmtfY2xpY2tlZCIsImNsaWNrVGV4dCI6dHJ1ZSwicGF0aCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZvcm11bGExLmNvbS9lbi9kcml2ZXJzL2NoYXJsZXMtbGVjbGVyYyIsInBhdGhUeXBlIjoiaW50ZXJuYWwifQ==\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/charles-leclerc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Charles Leclerc<\/a> for the lead in the first 10 laps, he was able to stretch away thereafter to secure his sixth career Grand Prix win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes lived up to their billing as pre-season favourites with a dominant performance in the season-opening Grand Prix&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-526119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}