Formula 1

Red Bull makes it three wins in three races in a day marred by crashes, renewing talk that it might be unbeatable this year.

It had been a bright day for the pink cars of Alpine, but it all went dark on the last restart after Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon — running fifth and 10th — came together in a chaotic few moments that scrambled the race order and took out six cars. “No, it cannot be, it’s unacceptable!” — Carlos Sainz, of Ferrari, after learning he was assessed a five-second penalty for spinning Alonso on a late restart. The decision was caused by debris on the track after Kevin Magnussen clipped the wall and destroyed his right rear tire. He took the lead from Max Verstappen on the first run but barely got a chance to enjoy the view as he soon came under pressure from his own teammate, Lewis Hamilton. His race ended before he could complete a lap, nudged off the track and into the gravel in a collision with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll on Turn 3. That was position was briefly in doubt, though, after he was spun by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz on the last competitive restart of the day. (Ferrari’s forgettable day somehow got worse when a five-second penalty on Carlos Sainz for causing a last-lap crash sent him down to 13th, and Ferrari out of the points.) Within seconds, both were sliding along a wall in the grass, wondering how such a positive afternoon, and the promise of some valuable points, had gone so very wrong. But once Max Verstappen got his hands on first place at the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, he never gave it back. The racing, at least for first place, was effectively over. Verstappen sure looked as if he could not be caught, opening a lead of more than 10 seconds at one point, lapping slower drivers with ease and then holding off a last-lap challenge on a final crash-laden restart. “We won, which is of course the most important.”