Australian GP Report
March 29th 2010 01:02
An afternoon of changeable conditions and crucial tyre calls on a greasy track dispelled the myth that F1 in 2010 will be boring. Some first corner carnage and some late race battles on the streets of Albert Park in Melbourne made for compelling viewing, while up front, F1’s defending champion took a crucial victory for his new team.
McLaren
Jenson Button (1st)
He silenced his critics on Saturday by out qualifying his illustrious teammate, but a first corner tangle with fellow world champions Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher left put Button down the pack and behind a flying Hamilton. The Briton was the first to swap intermediates for slicks, a move that even David Coulthard called daft. But it turned out to be a masterstroke and after setting the track alight, he leapfrogged just about the entire field as they all followed suit. He then nursed his tyres, an advantage many predicted he would have within the new regulations, and sailed to an important and confidence boosting victory.
Lewis Hamilton (6th)
Burnout boy claims his scrappy fight to sixth was one of the best drives of his life. He also claims “someone” in his team called the wrong strategy and cost him dearly. It’s true that while fighting with Kubica for a net second, McLaren’s decision to pit him for fresh rubber gave him a mountain to climb to get back to the business end. In terms of pace, it wasn’t a bad call. Lewis and Webber (who also pitted twice) traded fastest laps and propelled themselves to the podium battle at breakneck speed. Unfortunately, Fernando Alonso made his Ferrari as wide as a harbour ferry and allowed no way though. A fired up Webber then tried his luck against Lewis two laps from the end, but instead punted them both into the gravel. Lewis limped home behind Nico Rosberg, but was rather vocal with his criticism of the team... not for the first time.
Renault
Robert Kubica (2nd)
Kubica turned Renault’s miserable showing at Bahrain with a brilliant drive to second in Melbourne. The Pole dodged cars, debris and other first lap flotsam and jetsam to climb to third, played a canny pit strategy and drove with decent pace to hold station until the end. While Vettel’s imploding Red Bull and Hamilton and Webber’s costly second pit stops helped keep the Renault in the money, it was Robert’s gentle, safe hands that saw them through to score a much needed injection of morale.
Vitaly Petrov (DNF)
A disastrous second outing for rookie, starting with a qualifying performance that in a different era would have seen him exiled to a Siberian duma. Like his teammate, he made up for it with a cracking start, and was running inside the top ten, until he threw it all away by forgetting where the track was and getting stuck in some gravel.
Ferrari
Felipe Massa (3rd)
Quite how Felipe Massa finished third in this race is a puzzlement beyond the grasp of any mortal man or woman. The Brazilian did make a supersonic start and whizzed by Alonso and Webber at the start… but within a few laps he fell down the field while struggling for grip. Then, somehow after the en masse pit stops, he emerged ahead again. From there, though, he couldn’t catch Kubica’s giant banana of a Renault, and his much faster teammate was left to dart about behind him with no way past. Despite not having the pace, Felipe did manage to keep an uncharacteristic cool head to finish on the podium for the second straight race.
Fernando Alonso (4th)
It was a different story to Nando’s desert stroll two weeks ago. He bogged down in wheelspin off the line and was the meat in a crash sandwich with Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher. The tangle of champions dropped the Spaniard to last, but he fought valiantly upwards until he met the gearbox of Felipe Massa’s slower sister Ferrari. Massa simply slammed the door on every attempt by Alonso to slip past, and may have cost the double-world champion a shot at second. He never had the clear air to set a quick lap (he was 10th in the fastest lap chart), but you can easily tell Alonso is very comfy in his shiny red car.
Mercedes
Nico Rosberg (5th)
Again, all eyes were on his teammate, but Nico pulled out a carbon copy of his solid performance at Bahrain, with another strong points finish, ahead of Schumacher. In the race Nico was no match for the Red Bulls, McLarens and Ferraris, but he kept close enough to their tail so as to capitalise when Webber invited Hamilton to a late race excursion to the beach. Rosberg also managed to set the second fastest time of the day, just one tenth shy of Webber on the same strategy.
Michael Schumacher (10th)
An improved qualifying put the million-times world champion less than a tenth behind his teammate in seventh. But first corner argy bargy damaged his Mercedes’ front wing and the resulting stop dropped him to the rear of the field. While Ferrari’s Alonso recovered from the same incident to finish fourth, Schumacher found himself locked in a tense battle with Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari, who kept the man twice his age behind him until the very final laps. He came away with a sneaky point, but there was no resemblance to the man who used to win races simply by turning up.
Force India
Tonio Liuzzi (7th)
Mr Italian Stereotype was again more effective in race trim rather than over one lap. From 13th, Liuzzi finished 7th, his second straight points finish for Force India. It wasn’t spectacular, but he was kind to his tyres, and was fast enough to keep the Williams of Rubens Barrichello behind him. An improvement on Saturday would make Liuzzi a strong contender for regular points this season.
Adrian Sutil (DNF)
Sutil looked rather good all weekend and making it into Q3 was a good indication of the Force India’s pace. Unfortunately, the Mercedes engine in the back was feeling lazy on Sunday and ran on only four cylinders for a while, before finally giving up after nine laps. Unlucky for the German, especially as his teammate has been happily collecting points.
Williams
Rubens Barrichello (8th)
Williams has become a metaphorical proving ground for the experience versus youth debate, and thanks to another strong performance, old Rubens is giving some real credence to the experience corner. Starting and finishing eighth, the man who has been racing in F1 since before even the age of internal combustion is keeping Williams’ head above the water as the midfield battle intensifies, with Renault, Force India and Sauber all squabbling over the minor points.
Nico Hulkenberg (DNF)
While his rookie race in Bahrain wasn’t very flash, at least young Nico finished. In Australia, a sad qualifying performance left him 15th and his race lasted all of two corners before Kobayashi’s bouncing, front wing-less Sauber locked on to Hulkenberg and wiped him out with a scary impact. Chin up Hulky.
Red Bull
Mark Webber (9th)
Webber was disappointed to be second in qualifying. Partly because he was desperate for a home pole and partly because it put him on the dirty side of the grid. He was predicably tardy off the line, and lost out to Massa, but settled into a strong pace. Then, when the scramble for slicks was on, Webbsy had to stay a lap longer on buggered intermediates rather than stacking behind Vettel. The Aussie lost out heavily, and his problems were compounded with a short trip off the road. He fought back with Hamilton after a second stop for rubber, but frustration led to a ill-judged passing attempt for fifth, and the two were came together. Webber needed a new nose, but was still able to crawl home ninth. Disastrous considering he was the fastest car out there.
Sebastian Vettel
Sebastian may have to reconsider his love of waking under ladders, opening umbrellas indoors and frolicking about with black cats. As in Bahrain, the German was the dominant force in his Red Bull rocket, but while a dodgy spark plug killed his race in Sakhir, this time it was some sort of wheel issue. There’s no doubt that Sebastian has the fastest package, but its beginning to arouse memories of Kimi Raikkonen and McLaren in 2005. Fast is nothing without reliability. So far, it’s been wheely bad.
Toro Rosso
Jaime Alguersuari (11th)
The young Spaniard kept his nose clean thought the first lap carnage to emerge on the cusp of a points finish. He did well to keep a recovering Schumacher behind him for almost the entire race, but inexperience unfortunately led to a late mistake and the man old enough to be his dad was through – costing Algy and Toro Rosso a valuable point.
Sebastien Buemi (DNF)
Buemi gave himself a good chance for a stealthy point, qualifying a credible 11th for Toro Rosso. Unfortunately, the Swiss Seb was tagged in the Kobayashi-Hulkenberg collision and was left to spend the rest of the afternoon fixing watches and cutting holes in cheese.
Sauber
Pedro de la Rosa (12th)
Again, Saubers testing promise deserted them in Australia. De la Rosa was stuck in the midfield from the get go, and despite negotiating his way through spinning cars and a kamikaze sister Sauber, the Spaniard’s dire lack of racing experience showed when he ate his way through his tyres and drove the last 15 laps of his race as if someone had bolted ice-blocks to his axles. Last of the non-new teams.
Kamui Kobayashi (DNF)
For unknown reasons, the Saubers were showing an alarming habit of dropping their front wings clean off the car for no good reason other than to scare the bejesus out of their driver. It happened twice to Kamui in practice, and despite the team’s insistence they were freak occurrences, it happened again merely 40 seconds into the race. On the approach to turn six, Kobayashi’s wing fell off and he was a helpless passenger in his Hulkenberg-bound cruise missile.
Lotus
Heikki Kovalainen (13th)
Again the aim was to get to the chequered flag without breaking down or playing hide and seek in the tyre barriers. Heikki managed this, and was comfortably the best of the new teams all weekend. Once Virgin’s Timo Glock bowed out, Heikki cruised along in his Lotus, trying to pick out pretty girls in the crowd. Apparently he heard last year that turn one was a good spot to look.
Jarno Trulli (DNS)
Poor Jarno suffered a hydraulic failure before the race had even started and was unable to take his Lotus out onto the streets of Albert Park. He was four-tenths down on Heikki’s qualifying time, so from a personally perspective, Melbourne was a forgettable weekend for the Italian wine connoisseur. At least he was able to enjoy the action from the sidelines… most likely with a lovely robust, full-bodied Pinot Noir.
HRT
Karun Chandhok (14th)
Sighting the chequered flag would have been a fantastic feeling for the Indian rookie, especially given HRT’s severe lack of mileage. He was painfully slow, and finished three laps behind closest rival, Heikki Kovalainen (who was two laps down from Button), but the goal was to finish, and that goal was achieved – and not in easy circumstances. Still a long way to go, however.
Bruno Senna (DNF)
Unfortunately, the quicker of the two HRT’s didn’t enjoy the reliability of the other. Senna was always at least a tenth or two faster than Chandhok throughout the weekend – but come Sunday afternoon, his car decided it was only up for four laps before it let go of its hydraulics.
Virgin
Timo Glock (DNF)
Glock was slower than the Lotuses on Saturday, but not by much. Heavy modifications were needed to fix a fuel-pick up problem, so Glock and teammate Di Grassi started in pit lane. The German was able to catch up to Chandhok’s HRT and even had a little tussle with a recovering Schumacher. But, Virgin’s dreams of finishing a race (despite the undersize fuel tanks) were robbed when he was forced to retire after 41 laps with knackered suspension.
Lucas di Grassi (DNF)
Di Grassi’s difficult introduction to F1 continued in Australia. He was nowhere near Glock’s pace all weekend and after 25 laps Virgin’s favourite component of the car, the hydraulics, suffered another glitch and put the Brazilian out of the race.
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