Sebastian Vettel was able to translate his dominant display in qualifying into a comfortable victory at the first round of the 2011 Formula One season at Melbourne. Lewis Hamilton was the closest thing to competition for the German, but in reality nobody ever looked like troubling the reigning champion in his romp to the chequered flag. Once again Red Bull have left all their competitors scratching their heads as to how they might be able to close the gap to the sport's new dominant force.
Indeed, Vettel stuck his Red Bull on pole position by a whole seven-tenths of a second from Hamilton's McLaren without even using KERS, although the other Red Bull pilot, Mark Webber, may have made use of the system to prevent the Brit from lining up alongside Vettel. As it was, he qualified third, ahead of Jenson Button in the second McLaren, Fernando Alonso's strangely off-the-pace Ferrari and an impressive Vitaly Petrov for Renault.
As the lights went out, Vettel, Hamilton and Webber all made clean getaways to remain in that formation after the first corner, but Button did less well – he was passed by Petrov and the fast-starting Ferrari of Felipe Massa from eighth on the grid. Button's poor start forced Alonso to the outside of the track where he fell to ninth, but the two-time champion quickly disposed of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi and Nico Rosberg's Mercedes to get back into seventh position.
He soon caught up with Button, who seemed to be much quicker than Massa ahead. Alas, Frome's finest simply couldn't find a way past, despite making use of the DRS (Drag Reduction System, previously referred to in this blog simply as 'moveable rear wings') at every opportunity. After many laps of frustration, he finally drew alongside the Brazilian on the exit of turn 10, but couldn't quite edge ahead. As the pair reached the fast switchback of turns 11 and 12, Massa held his line and Button elected to cut the corner rather than drop back behind the scarlet car.
Button was now ahead unlawfully, convention dictating that the McLaren driver should have to drop back behind Massa to avoid a penalty. However, Alonso passed Massa just after Button did so, meaning the Brit would now have to surrender position to both Ferraris to avoid a penalty. He chose not to, and incurred the wrath of the stewards, slapped with a drive-through penalty for his misdemeanour. As Button dropped down the pack, at the front the order remained Vettel from Hamilton, Webber and Petrov prior to the first pit-stops.
Webber was first of the leading quartet to come in on lap 12, followed by his teammate three laps later. Hamilton briefly led for two more laps before he entered the pits for a switch of rubber, along with Petrov. The order of the top four remained unchanged, with Alonso and Massa running in fifth and sixth after their stops. Having not stopped by this stage, Sauber debutant Sergio Perez was in seventh, ahead of a tightly bunched pack consisting of Rosberg, Kobayashi, Rubens Barrichello and Sebastien Buemi. Button, after his penalty and tyre stop was in a lowly twelfth place.
Barrichello made a risky but successful lunge at turn 3 to deprive Kobayashi of ninth place on Lap 22, but two laps later he attempted a repeat on Rosberg at the exact same place. On this occasion however, he clattered into the side of the silver machine, putting the German out of the race to end a miserable afternoon for the Mercedes team – Rosberg's teammate Michael Schumacher had been struck by an over-exuberant Jaime Alguersauri on the first lap, resulting in a puncture for the rear-right tyre of the seven-time champion's car which left him a lap down, ultimately retiring on lap 22.
All of that action made Button's life somewhat easier: having passed Buemi, he was finally able to give us the first (and what would transpire to be the only) DRS-assisted overtake of the race at Kobayashi's expense on lap 25. Now up to seventh after Perez's stop, the Brit set about chasing the Ferrari duo ahead. Alonso came in for his second stop of the afternoon on lap 28, one lap after Webber, with whom the Spaniard had caught up in the battle for fourth position by equipping soft tyres rather than the harder compound like his Australian adversary.
Alonso, much like Button in his battle with Massa, used the DRS repeatedly in an attempt to pass Webber, but again to no avail. It wouldn't be until they both made their third and final stops that Alonso would finally snatch fourth – Webber pitted a lap earlier than his rival, but crucially made a costly error by running onto the grass at turn 3 on his out lap. That was more than enough for the Ferrari number one to emerge ahead when he made his stop. Alonso then proceeded to rapidly close the gap to Petrov in a late bid for the final podium place, but ran out of laps before he was able to get himself in a position to pass the Russian.
Meanwhile, Vettel simply cruised home to his eleventh career win after his second stop, his job made all the easier by a loose undertray for Hamilton. Still, for all the trouble McLaren had in testing, it was an excellent result for the team who were understandably relieved with Hamilton's second place. Petrov kept his head in a remarkable effort for his maiden podium finish, although one couldn't help but wonder what the Renault may have been capable of in the absent Robert Kubica's hands. Alonso and Webber came home fourth and fifth respectively from Button who executed a fine pass on Massa on lap 48 to take sixth.
One lap later, Massa made his third stop which dropped him to tenth place behind both Saubers and Buemi, although the Brazilian was able to make a late pass at turn 1 to deprive the Swiss driver of ninth position. Still, he could do nothing about eighth-placed Kobayashi, and seventh-placed Perez who had quietly sneaked up the order having incredibly only made one tyre stop. Alas, the Mexican's richly deserved first points, along with those of Kobayashi, were stripped after the stewards discovered that the uppermost rear wing elements of both of the Saubers were found to be in breach of the regulations.
That put Massa back up to seventh, with Buemi eighth, followed by the Force India pairing of Adrian Sutil and British newcomer Paul Di Resta who scored one point on a solid if unspectacular debut race. Alguersauri could do no better than eleventh after his early tangle with Schumacher, but he did finish ahead of Nick Heidfeld who had an extremely disappointing run to twelfth which was made all the worse by his Renault teammate Petrov finishing on the podium. Italian veteran Jarno Trulli for Lotus and Belgian novice Jerome D'Ambrosio were the only new-team cars to finish after mechanical retirements for their respective teammates Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock.
The Australian Grand Prix, as well as having underlined the superiority of the Red Bull (at least in the hands of Vettel), has called into question the value of the elements brought in for this season in order to spice up the action – for all the hype of supposedly rapidly-wearing Pirelli tyres, DRS and the return of KERS, the race was hardly any more exciting than most of last year's action. The tyres held out better than expected, with the leading trio making only two stops, DRS was only directly responsible for one overtaking move all afternoon, and Red Bull proved that KERS is an unnecessary fad by winning without using it.
We'll have to wait and see if they play any bigger part at the next race at Malaysia in two weeks time, and also to see whether McLaren, Ferrari, or any other team for that matter can have any kind of answer to the mightiness of the Red Bull-Vettel package – the last time anybody really did have was Alonso at Singapore six months ago. Vettel's rivals certainly won't be able to wait that long if they are to prevent him from taking an easy second title.
No comments:
Post a Comment