Tidying up all the odds and ends following race day in Melbourne and the start of the new season, wuqian0821.com✃ F1 Editor Luke Smith brings you his p💧addock notebook.

- Seba𒐪stian Vettel’s charge to victory inꦇ Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix marked his 100th career podium finish in his 199th start. It was Vettel’s 48th F1 win, putting him three off Alain Prost for third place in the all-time list.

- The double-podium finish marks Ferrar꧑i’s best start to a season since 2010, when Fe🐓rnando Alonso and Felipe Massa claimed a one-two finish in Bahrain.

- Merc🔜edes lagged to its worst start to a season since 2013 as Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas only amassed a combined 22 points. While Hamilton took second place, Bottas could only recover to P8 following his grid penalty that meant he started 15th.

- Bottas was frustrated by the lack of overtaking opportunities, with the difficulty of follo🙈wing cars ahead b๊eing a sticking point for all drivers on Sunday, even with the additional DRS zone between Turn 12 and Turn 13.

- Daniel Ricciardo may have missed out on becoming the first Australian to finish his home F1 race on the podium, but his run to P4 matched his best result at Albert Park from 2016. Teammate Max Verstappen had a difficult day, ultimately finishing P6 as the team’s decision to star🔴t on Supersoft tyre failed to pay o𒆙ff.

- Red Bull ultimately followed the rest of th𒅌e field with a one-stop strategy, switching to the Soft tyre to complete the second half of the race.

- Vettel’s race winnꩲing strategy was to start on Ultrasofts, pit under the Virtua💦l Safety Car on Lap 26, and complete the remaining 32 laps on the Soft tyre. Charles Leclerc was the top finisher on a two-stop strategy, taking advantage of the Safety Car to fit a set of Ultrasofts on Lap 27.

- ♍Fernando Alonso recorded both his and McLaren’s best result since the 2016 United States Grand Prix by finishing fifth, fending off Verstappen through the closing stages of the race. Teammate Stoffel Vandoorne finished P9.

- Renault picked up a double points finish with Nico Hulkenberg in P7 and Carlos Sainz Jr. in P10. Sai♈nz got to the finish despite feeling nauseous through the closing stages of the race after taking a drink from his bottle✤.

- The points-paying positions were filled out 🗹by five teams, all of whom placed both car☂s in the top 10.

- Force India had a d♕ifficult day as Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon ailed to P11 and P12 respectively, marking its first race without points since Monaco last year.

- Sergey Sirotkin’s F1 debut ended after just three laps when a loose sandwich bag blew onto the track and into the right-rear brake ductꦫ of his Williams car, drawing the curtain on a difficult weekend.

- Brendon Hartley was the last cl♊assified finisher in P15, ending the race one lap down on Vettel. Hartley pitted at the end of the opening lap after flat-spotting his tyres. Teammate Pierre Gasly retired after 13 laps due to an MGU-H failure on his Honda power unit.꧒ Honda will investigate the issue.

- Haas’ double DNF was the result of 🌟a crossthreaded wheel nut at 🅰both Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen’s pit stops, scuppering the chances of the team’s best-ever result. The drivers had been running fourth and fifth before the issues.

- The team was fined €10,000 for releasing its cars onto the track in an unsafe manner. (€5,000ಌ for each car). Team principal Günther Steiner cancelled his press call after the race.

- Marcus Ericsson retired after four laps due to a hydraulic issue on h𝔉is Sꦬauber C37 car.

ღ- Daniel Ricciar🌳do posted the fastest lap of the race of 1:25.945 on Lap 54.

- The fastest pit stop was completed by Brendon Hartley and Toro Rosso on Lap 1, clocking📖 in at 🅷22.213 seconds from pit entry to pit exit. Kimi Raikkonen was second ahead of Lewis Hamilton in P3.

- The Australian Grand Prix Corporation reported an e🦹arly four-day attendance figure of 295,000, putting it around the same level as last year’s race.

- Today’s race marked the first to use ‘grid kids’ that accompanied each driver ahead o𝐆f the race, plus some 𓂃‘future stars’ - young karters who were at the front of the grid for the national anthem.

- A tribute was paid to the late Ron Walker in the lead up to l༒ights out. Walker headed up the AGPC for ꦉmore than 20 years, and passed away at the end of January at the age of 78.

- Among the ‘talent’ invited to the race weꦇre a number of digital influencers - those prolific on social media and other platforms such as YouTube - marking a shift from Liberty Media as it looks to take F1 to an expanded audience.