For Scuderia Ferrari HP, the 2026 World Championship began with a third place for Charles Leclerc and a fourth for Lewis Hamilton, the whole team producing a solid performance.

The opening stages of the Australian Grand Prix were thrilling, mainly down to a great duel between Charles and George Russell who traded places several times. Lewis was also very competitive, matching his team-mate's pace, running an identical race, shadowing him all the way to the chequered flag. Between them, they brought home 27 points.

Charles and Lewis both got perfect starts, which saw the Monegasque leading into turn 1, while by the end of the first sector, the Englishman had moved up to third. On lap 2, Russell passed Leclerc, who immediately fought back to retake the lead next time round. They duelled all the way to lap 12 when a Virtual Safety Car was called after Isack Hadjar stopped at the side of the track. Russell and his Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli took the opportunity to pit and switch from Medium to Hard tyres, while the Ferrari duo stayed out, sticking to their race plan. Leclerc pitted on lap 25 to take on Hard tyres, as did Hamilton three laps later. At this point they were third and fourth and in fact, the order never changed from then on to the chequered flag.

Charles Leclerc: We were quite strong in the race, which was a positive given that our expectations yesterday were not that high. I had a good start and learned a lot on those opening laps. There are lots of things to manage at the same time, energy deployment, tyres, overtakes, and I'm happy with how I handled the situation from inside the car. Unfortunately, we didn't have the pace to hold onto first place later on.

We've got to be on it in terms of development and push to the maximum to reduce the gap. We have gained a lot of insight in these days. We will take that knowledge with us and work on making a step forward for China.

Lewis Hamilton: I was happy with the performance for our first race of the season. There has been a lot of learning over the weekend and we squeezed everything out of today and took absolutely all the performance that was on the table. From the first laps I felt switched on and throughout the race understanding more and more about the car and adjusting my inputs to get the most from it.

There is still lots to learn and work to do but it's clear we're in the fight. We'll stay grounded, stay precise, and keep pushing to build on this.

Fred Vasseur: For the sport this was a very good race. There were some pessimistic comments about this new Formula 1 going into the season and I think today's race start and then the first ten laps were the most exciting we have witnessed in the past ten years and not just because we were in front! From our side, third and fourth is a good result. We saw after qualifying that there was a performance gap and so this result was the best we could do today. We have a long season ahead of us and we must improve many aspects over the coming months. With regards to our strategy, we decided not to pit under the VSC, as we were focused on our optimal strategy. Then, we and I think also Mercedes, were very surprised by the long life of the tyres and with the second VSC we were a bit unlucky as the pit lane entry was closed when we could have pitted. It is what it is and now we are focussing on the next race. We can be positive, because we know where we need to improve, even if we know it will be a challenge.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Melbourne here.