Infinite Improbability Drive of the Race - Australia 2025

[Londoner]

1. Andrea Antonelli. As much as I believe he should be nowhere near a top seat at this point in his career, he was the only rookie to get it home today, which is plaudits I guess...

2. Alex Albon. P6 in qualifying, P4 in the race, absolutely enormous result for Williams.

[rachel1990]

1. Alex Albon. What a difference 12 months makes for Williams. Last year Albon crashing led to a very bad publicity decision for the team. This year getting p4 (now p5)is one of the stories of the race.

2. Kimi Antonelli. P5 (now p4. And no longer a reject!!!) on your Debut in those conditions is very good going indeed.

[Alextrax52]

Lots of candidates so I’ll just list them

Alex Albon: The arrival of Sainz has seemingly spurred Albon to up his game this year, qualifying a fine 6th and finishing a stunning 4th was just reward for their performance in testing. Discounting George Russell’s 2nd place from Belgium 2021 (the race that never was) this was Williams’s first top 6 finish since Mexico 2017!!!

Kimi Antonelli: Did have a spin and got an unsafe release penalty but apart from that this was a very good recovery from someone who is still a teenager driving under massive pressure at a top team replacing a legend. Would have been interesting to see if Mercedes got involved with team orders had there been another lap or two.

Lance Stroll: Many would have earmarked him as a sure fire crasher but instead it was his more illustrious team-mate who made the mistake while Lance kept his head to grab his best result since last year’s Aus GP

Nico Hulkenberg: I honestly thought he’d made the wrong choice to leave Haas for Sauber, on this weekend’s evidence that couldn’t be further from the truth. And his experience came to the fore to earn Sauber more points today than the whole of 2024.

[Meatwad]

Andrea Kimi Antonelli: After a weak qualifying, fifth is a brilliant debut result – shame about the penalty!

Honorable mention to Alexander Albon: Fourth is an incredible result for Williams, their best in a proper race since Baku 2017.

[dr-baker]

Lots of candidates so I’ll just list them

Alex Albon: The arrival of Sainz has seemingly spurred Albon to up his game this year, qualifying a fine 6th and finishing a stunning 4th was just reward for their performance in testing. Discounting George Russell’s 2nd place from Belgium 2021 (the race that never was) this was Williams’s first top 6 finish since Mexico 2017!!!

Kimi Antonelli: Did have a spin and got an unsafe release penalty but apart from that this was a very good recovery from someone who is still a teenager driving under massive pressure at a top team replacing a legend. Would have been interesting to see if Mercedes got involved with team orders had there been another lap or two.

Lance Stroll: Many would have earmarked him as a sure fire crasher but instead it was his more illustrious team-mate who made the mistake while Lance kept his head to grab his best result since last year’s Aus GP

Nico Hulkenberg: I honestly thought he’d made the wrong choice to leave Haas for Sauber, on this weekend’s evidence that couldn’t be further from the truth. And his experience came to the fore to earn Sauber more points today than the whole of 2024.

These four drivers were in my mind for IIDOTR too.

[Salamander]

1. Alex Albon: With Sainz completely blowing it very early on, it looked a bit dicey for Williams to get a solid result out of a promising weekend, but Albon really came through for them in the race - didn't overdrive it on the wet, but maintained a solid, consistent pace that that maximised his finishing position, and showed as well that Williams might well have one of the more underrated driving pairings on the grid.
2. Andrea Kimi Antonelli: AKA an actually good race by a rookie! All things considered, I'd say he outperformed Russell on his debut, not bad at all!

[IceG]

Whilst many of the proposed candidates approached high levels of improbability, there were, for me, only two infinitely improbable candidates:

Antonelli: a rookie who kept his car on the track, showed excellent rain/wet control, and maintained a calm head to score solid points - Toto is not in Kansas any more

Hulkenberg: who outperformed expectations, his car, and many other illustrious drivers to show what he is capable of - Audi must be smiling

[James1978]

No love for Lando? This time last year I'm sure he would have caved in to Max. I honestly thought Max would walk this when it was wet.

Great results for Albon, Kimi, Stroll and Hulk, and also should have been Yuki before his team did a great Ferrari impression.

[RAK]

Kimi Antonelli: After what was not an especially fortuitous qualifying, he got a solid finishing position to unrejectify himself when the rest of the rookies were floundering.

[dr-baker]

Radio message of the race:

[FalconCapelli]

Alex Albon: Unlike last year's Australian GP, he manages to get a decent qualy and a decent race result.

[Bleu]

1. Stroll

2. Albon

[mario]

No love for Lando? This time last year I'm sure he would have caved in to Max. I honestly thought Max would walk this when it was wet.

Great results for Albon, Kimi, Stroll and Hulk, and also should have been Yuki before his team did a great Ferrari impression.

I guess that it may be because the expectations of Norris are raised after last year and thus the benchmark has been similarly raised (i.e. there was an expectation that he should be better at resisting that sort of pressure). Added to that, I suspect that, because McLaren were generally believed to be the team to beat going into that weekend, that would have also helped push up the benchmark for what would be considered an impressive performance.

As a result, it does mean that it's more likely to be the midfield runners and the rookies that are looked at more favourably, with that quartet being the main nominees and Tsunoda the one for an honourable mention.

[Salamander]

As a result, it does mean that it's more likely to be the midfield runners and the rookies that are looked at more favourably, with that quartet being the main nominees and Tsunoda the one for an honourable mention.

To be honest, I've always been under the impression that IIDOTR should primarily be midfield/backmarker focused whenever possible - we should expect the frontrunners to win when it's on the table, that's why they're the frontrunners.