Australian Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Jenson Button took a fine win at Melbourne as the 2012 Formula One season got off to an electrifying start at Melbourne. Upon taking the lead at the very start of the race, the McLaren driver never looked like being stopped, Sebastian Vettel finishing in second after vaulting ahead of pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton during a late Safety Car period.

It was Hamilton who set the pace during Saturday’s qualifying session, leading an all-McLaren front row as Button lined up alongside his teammate. Romain Grosjean surprised everybody on his F1 return by putting his Lotus in third place on the grid, ahead of the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher, the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Vettel, the second Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and an eye-catchingly quick Pastor Maldonado for Williams. Fernando Alonso beached his recalcitrant Ferrari in the gravel at turn 1 in Q2, consigning himself to twelfth on the grid in the process, whilst an error from Kimi Raikkonen in Q1 would ensure he would start the race from a lowly seventeenth place.

As the lights went out to signify the start of a new season, it was Button who made the superior getaway of the two McLaren drivers, taking the lead at the very first corner. Behind the silver-and-red cars, Grosjean made a poor start, dropping from third to sixth position behind Schumacher, Rosberg and Vettel. Things were about to go from bad to worse for the Franco-Swiss driver however, as his Lotus was terminally damaged by Maldonado’s Williams as the Venezuelan clumsily attempted a pass at turn 13 on the second lap.

As Button and Hamilton stretched their legs at the front of the pack, Vettel wasted no time in dispatching compatriot Rosberg to take fourth place with a ballsy manoeuvre at turn 10 on the second lap. The reigning champion shrugged off a minor off-track excursion on lap 6 and proceeded to cruise up to the back of Schumacher, but as he began to line up as pass on lap 11, the Mercedes driver went straight on at the first turn before limping back to the pits into retirement as a result of transmission failure.

Button continued to lead after making his first stop for medium tyres on lap 16, whilst Hamilton had fallen behind the yet-to-stop Sauber of Sergio Perez (the Mexican had worked his way through the field from last place after suffering gearbox failure during qualifying) after pitting for medium tyres the following lap. Hamilton subsequently lost time trying to find a way past Perez, putting Vettel in a strong position to take advantage of the Safety Car when it arrived. Meanwhile, Alonso had leapt from eighth at the end of the opening lap to fourth place ahead of Rosberg who narrowly held fifth place from Webber and Maldonado.

The Australian had recovered some lost ground after finishing the first lap down in ninth following a lousy start, while the erstwhile GP2 champion's speed was seemingly unaffected by a trip through the gravel on lap 5.  Both men appeared to be being held up by Rosberg, who took to the escape road at the turn 11/12 switchback on lap 31 whilst coming under pressure from Webber; the German dived into the pits for a second stop at the end of the lap. Alonso was next among the front-runners to stop again for mediums on lap 34, Button and Hamilton following two laps later.

Both of the McLaren drivers would however lose time to Vettel, who benefited from pitting after the Safety Car was scrambled to allow Vitaly Petrov’s stricken Caterham to be recovered. Vettel was able to consequently move ahead of Hamilton, while Webber similarly took advantage of pitting under the Safety Car to move ahead of Alonso into fourth place. The race would get underway once more at the start of lap 42, with Button heading the field from Vettel, Hamilton, Webber, Alonso and Maldonado. Button made an excellent job of the restart, slowly extending his advantage over rivals Vettel, Hamilton and Webber, who were all tightly bunched for the remainder of the race.

The order among the top four nonetheless remained static until the chequered flag, Button taking his thirteenth career victory and his third at the Albert Park circuit in fine style. Alonso finished in fifth, his caused helped by a huge shunt for Maldonado on the very final lap on the exit of turn 8; the Williams driver had been harassing the double champion right from the restart with the Ferrari suffering badly from tyre wear.
Perez had been on course to inherit sixth place after making his customary one-stop strategy pay dividends, until he was tagged by Rosberg as the German attempted to pass on the exit of turn 10 on the final lap. The German suffered a puncture as a result, whilst front wing damage sustained by Perez meant he would drop two places to eighth.

It was the second Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi that stole sixth, thanks in part to an aggressive move by the Japanese driver on eventual seventh-place finisher Raikkonen at turn 3 immediately after the restart. Ninth went to Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo, whose race was immediately compromised by a first corner collision with Bruno Senna’s Williams. Both were able to continue after pitting for repairs, but Senna made contact with the Ferrari of an extremely lacklustre Felipe Massa at turn 4 towards the end of the race which ultimately put both Brazilians out of the race. Ricciardo on the other hand managed to latch himself on to the back of a train comprising Perez, Rosberg, Kobayashi, Raikkonen, Jean-Eric Vergne and Paul di Resta, overtaking the latter pair to take ninth place, putting two Australian drivers in the points for the first time in F1 history.

Di Resta took tenth with a last-gasp pass on the second Toro Rosso of Vergne in an anonymous afternoon for the Force India team – the sister car of Nico Hulkenberg retired on the opening lap after contact was made with a slow-starting Webber at the first corner. Rosberg and Maldonado were classified in twelfth and thirteenth places respectively, ahead of the two Marussias of Timo Glock and Charles Pic, the latter of whom failed to make the finish after his car experienced a loss of oil pressure. Heikki Kovalainen joined his new Caterham teammate Petrov in succumbing to mechanical problems, whilst the HRT pair of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan both failed to qualify in what can only be described as a catastrophic weekend for the ill-resourced Spanish outfit.

With the top four cars separated by less than five seconds at the finish line, the 2012 season is shaping up to be a far closer-fought affair than last year. As I investigated last week, the trend in recent years has been that the winner of the first race has gone on to take the title –  though the destiny of the championship is far from certain at this very early stage of the year, Button’s emphatic triumph over Hamilton appears to indicate that this season could present a golden opportunity for the Frome native to add a second world title to his repertoire and establish himself as a modern great of the sport.