It's only the first of 24 rounds, but George Russell believes the 2025 season is already a foregone conclusion.

"McLaren has such a big gap to the others that they could stop development already and focus completely on 2026," the Mercedes driver said.

Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher detects a sense of gloom at Mercedes, with the team poised to end the 2022-2025 rules cycle barely scraping the lower podium spots.

"Toto Wolff stood in front of the cameras looking perplexed yet again," he told Bild newspaper at Albert Park. "And with a rookie like Kimi Antonelli, it won't be any easier."

Several rookies, including Red Bull's Liam Lawson, have indeed stumbled at the season opener in Australia, with Lawson so far showing little improvement over Sergio Perez.

"He wanted to show what he can do," Red Bull adviser Dr Helmut Marko said after qualifying, "and unfortunately that went wrong.

"We have to let him cool down a bit now and observe his development over the first three to five races."

Given Yuki Tsunoda's strong showing in the junior Racing Bulls car, Marko's words carry weight. McLaren CEO Zak Brown couldn't help but poke fun.

"They seem to make some strange driver choices at Red Bull," he said. "Especially when you look at a performance like Yuki's."

Haas rookie Oliver Bearman also endured a rough start to his campaign. "Multiple accidents in one weekend are simply unacceptable," Marko remarked.

Even F1's most decorated driver, Lewis Hamilton, struggled to leave an impression in Melbourne. "If Ferrari's interest is competitiveness, I would have saved a lot of money on the salary and taken someone else," Alpine adviser Flavio Briatore told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Hamilton, however, was reflective. "I went into FP1 here and realised 'Okay, I still have a long way to go.'"

Yet even Charles Leclerc was dismayed by Ferrari's lacklustre pace. "Even in the worst case scenario I didn't imagine this," he said after qualifying P7.

For Red Bull, Marko found solace in the fact that an initially daunting gap to McLaren narrowed as the weekend unfolded.

"I already won 500 euros from Jos (Verstappen), because he thought we would give up five tenths to McLaren," he told De Telegraaf. "Compared to the test days in Bahrain, we have taken a big step."

Max Verstappen, though, tempered expectations after qualifying: "We're definitely not at McLaren's level. No one can argue with that." body check tags ::