Though it appeared safety concerns had been overstated, F1 rode its luck at Albert Park this weekend.
Of course, one of the main talking points, safety-wise, was actually missed at the time, as all eyes were focussed on the front of the grid after weeks of fearmongering that eventually led to a revised start procedure.
Though the Mercedes pair were sluggish out of their traps, all looked good as the field streamed into Turn 1.
However, further back, in a nerve-wracking moment, Franco Colapinto had somehow avoided running into the back of Liam Lawson who had struggled to get going.
With breathtaking reactions, the Argentine went to the right of the Racing Bull avoiding it and somehow also missing the pit-wall which was inviting him siren-like to his right.
"At the start I almost had a massive shunt with Liam as he was stuck on the grid," explained the Alpine driver post-race. "That was pretty lucky to be honest.
"Things like that happen but it was just very dangerous and quite sketchy," he added. "I'm glad I got through that," he smiled, in a masterpiece of understatement.
"Honestly I have no idea," admitted Lawson, when asked what happened, "I launched and didn't move and lost all power, and then I couldn't get it back for another five seconds.
"Then a couple of seconds later I got it back and then got wheelspin," he added. "I don't know what happened, I haven't had that in testing."
"These things can happen with these new cars," said Colapinto, "but it was just very dangerous and quite sketchy, so I'm glad I went through that. I hit the wall a little bit with the rear right but generally was just that."
Later in the race, when the VSC was deployed for the third time, a couple of marshals ran on to the track to clear debris even though the cars were still circulating and the offending carbon fibre was in a blind corner. This at the track where trackside marshal Graham Beveridge was killed after being struck by a wheel in 2001 following a clash involving Jacques Villeneuve and Ralf Schumacher.
Over the weekend we witnessed countless unexplained incidents that were clearly more about the new regulations and not driver error, not least Oscar Piastri suffering a sudden surplus of energy on his way to the grid today.
"Certainly, these power units can be quite aggressive when they release all the power," admitted Andrea Stella. "We talk about a thousand horsepower coming all together, and when the tyres may be a little bit on the cold side, or if this power comes in an unpredictable way, like it happened to Oscar, then it can become very tricky.
"I don't want to be here and saying I have an easy solution, I don't," he admitted, "but I'm here saying we should look into the regulations."
Asked about the similar, mysterious incidents involving Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen, the Italian said: "The accidents you mentioned, they are kind of not a near miss, they are a very material indication that there's work to do, so we should do this work as an F1 community."
"It is chaos," said Lando Norris, "and we are going to have a big accident, which is a shame because we are driving and the ones just waiting for something to happen and to go quite horribly wrong and that is not a nice position to be in.
"Depending on what drivers do, you can have closing speeds of 30, 40, 50kph, and when someone hits another driver at that speed, you are going to fly and go over the fence and do a lot of damage to yourself and maybe to others and that is a pretty horrible thing to think about," he added.
However, ever the PR man, yet the very first to snitch on a rival, race winner George Russell dismissed the 2025 world champion's concerns.
"Yeah, well, he's always... I don't know. If he was winning, I don't think he'd be saying the same," said the Mercedes driver.
"We weren't happy with how stiff the cars were last year and the porpoising, and everyone had a bad back, and drivers were complaining about that, but McLaren drivers said there was no porpoising, even though we watched their car and they were porpoising," he added.
"So everyone's always looking to themselves," he continued, without a hint of irony, "we're all selfish in this regard. The truth is, last year we had the same engine as them and McLaren did a better job than us, and they beat us.
"Now McLaren have got the same engine as us, the same as Williams and the same as Alpine, and so far we've done a better job than them. So that's just how the game goes."
Fact is, the majority of today's 'overtakes', each joyfully recounted by the broadcasters as 'proof' of the success of the rules overhaul, was down to the fact that a driver was either slowing to harvest energy or pushing a button to release it, the enormous speed differentials pointed to by the likes of Stella are a fact.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Melbourne here.
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