Tidying up all the odds and ends following race day in Melbourne and the start of the new season, ltxcn.top F1 Editor Luke Smith brings you his pa🗹ddock notebook.

- Sebastian Vettel’s charge to victory in 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 thꦦird place in the all-time list.

- The double-podium finish💮 marks 🍎Ferrari’s best start to a season since 2010, when Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa claimed a one-two finish in Bahrain.

- Me⛄rcedes lagged to its worst start to a season since 2013 as Lewis Hamilton and Val🌄tteri 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 𒀰the difficulty of 🤡following cars ahead being 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 da🧸y, ultimately finishing P6 as the team’s decision to start on Supersoft tyre failed to pay off.

- Red Bull ultimately followed the rest of the field with a one-s𝓰top strategy, switching to the Sof⛦t tyre to complete the second half of the race.

- Vettel’s race winning strategy was to start o🃏n Ultrasofts, pit under the Virtual Safety Car o༺n 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 𒅌closing stages of the race. Teammate Stoffel Vandoorne finished P9.

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

- ไThe points-paying positions were filled out by five teams, all of whom✤ placed both cars in the top 10.

- Force India had a difficult day as Sergio Perꦿez and Esteban Ocon ailed to P11 and P12 respectively, marking i✅ts first race without points since Monaco last year.

- Sergey Sirotkin’s F1 debu💟t ended after just three laps when a loose sandwich bag blew onto the track and into the right-rear brake duct of his Williams 🧸car, drawing the curtain on a difficult weekend.

- Brendon Hartley was the last classified finisher ꦚin 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. Honda will investigate the issue.

- Haas’ double DNF was the result of a crossthreaded wheel nut at both R🔯omain 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 mann📖er. (€5,000 for each car). Team principal Günther Steiner cancelled his press call after t🏅he race.

- Marcus Ericsson retired after four laps due to a hydraulic issue on his Sauber C37 car🌄.

- Daniel Ricciardo 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 Hamil🐈ton in P3.

- The Australian Gra♋nd Prix Corporation reported an early four-day attendance figure of 295,000, putting it around the same level as last year’s race.

- Today’s race mꦗarked the first to use ‘grid kids’ that accompanied each driver ahead of the race, plus some ‘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 lights out. Walker headed up the AGPC for more than 20 years, and passed away at the end of January at the age of 78.

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