Nico Rosberg took a brilliant 1st place in this year’s season opening Melbourne GP after qualifying in 3rd place and all eyes were on his team mate Lewis Hamilton who on Saturday had placed his Mercedes on pole. However, at the start of the race Lewis’ new V6 turbo decided to become a 5 cylinder turbo and his race ended shortly after. Daniel Ricciardo had brilliantly placed his Red Bull in 2nd place during Saturdays qualifying and much to the delight of the home crowd came home in 2nd however this would later be stripped, more about that later. Nico Rosberg led into the first corner after making use of the superior performance available from his Mercedes power unit and never let up the lead from there.
Starting in fourth place was young Mclaren protégée Kevin Magnussen who replicated the qualifying efforts of the last Ron Dennis handpicked protégée Lewis Hamilton in 2007. Magnuessen had a brilliant race to bring his Mclaren home in 2nd place. Team mate Jensen Button had a horrible qualifying session (placing 11th on the grid), but managed a strong race and ended in 3rd.
Valtteri Bottas (in my opinion the driver of the day) brought his Williams home in 5th place after qualifying in 10th behind team mate Felipe Massa in 9th. Massa was removed from the race in a start line incident with Caterham’s Kamui Kobayaashi who through luck had managed to break into P2 on Saturday and was starting in 15th position. The Caterham drivers brake by wire system failed sending him into the Williams of Massa entering the first corner. Bottas however drove a solid race and if not for a tap with the wall would have been in contention for a podium, Williams did not show their true potential this race.
Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen suffered from electrical faults with their Ferraris all weekend, which did not allow them to run at full power. This made Alonso’s 4th and Kimis’ 7th place very impressive. Nico Hulkenberg continues to show his amazing talent by claiming 6th place and continued his run of scoring points (why won’t a top team sign this guy?!), his Force India team mate Sergio Perez rounded out the top 10. Also in the points this weekend were the Torro Rosso’s of rookie Daniil Kvyat, now F1’s youngest ever points scorer and Jean-Eric Vergne.
So what happened to Ricciardo and his 4 time world champion team mate Sebastian Vettel? Well after claiming a brilliant 2nd place in front of his home crowd Daniel was stripped of his 2nd place. Why? For exceeding the fuel flow limit this is best explained here. Red Bull has advised that they will appeal, which shall be interesting.
As for Vettel, it would appear that instead of Ricciardo inheriting the dodgy Red Bull car that Mark Webber was cursed with for years it now appears to be Sebastian’s. The world champion only qualifying in 13th with electrical issues and not even finishing 3 laps before retiring with power unit issues during the race. It’ll be interesting to see how Sebastian handles this season with what looks to be strong a challenge from his team mate and what doesn’t appear to be the best car on the grid.
The teams now prepare for Sepang Malaysia this weekend, a race that traditionally provides hot temperatures and rain. Many questions were left unanswered in Melbourne in terms of the pecking order of the teams and it seems unlikely that the Malaysian GP is going to answer much, but the unpredictable nature of the weather guarantees that this will be a GP worth watching. Roll on Saturday 7pm for qualifying!
PS: Be sure to check out the official F1 Race Edit Video (they’re always amazing!). Watch: http://www.formula1.com/video/race_edits (you’ll need membership, but singing up is free and well worth it!).