Ferrari
leads the Constructors’ World Championship after the
opening round. That statement alone is enough to
generate a sigh of relief from Prancing Horse fans
around the world. After testing, the stated first
objective was for Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa to be
given a much more competitive car than last year and
this evening, the F138, although not the quickest,
delivered on that promise. Kimi Raikkonen won the race,
running an impressive two stop strategy in the Lotus,
with Fernando joining him on the podium in second place,
in front of Sebastian Vettel, who finished third for Red
Bull, having started from pole. The reason the Scuderia
heads the Constructors’ table is that Felipe Massa
rounded off the weekend with a strong drive to fourth
place.
After a dry and sunny spell in the middle of the day,
the clouds were again menacing Albert Park as the cars
set off on their formation lap. The two F138s were on
the Supersoft Pirelli, like all the top ten qualifiers,
so early pit stops were predicted. Vettel got away
cleanly from pole in the Red Bull, but his team-mate
Webber dropped to seventh from second on the grid.
Felipe made a lightening start to take second with
Fernando right behind him in third as they crossed the
line for the first time. Behind them came Hamilton,
Raikkonen, Rosberg, Webber, Di Resta, Button with Sutil
completing the top ten.
Button pitted on lap 4, followed one lap later by
Webber, Grosjean and Gutierrez. At the front, Felipe
trailed Vettel by 0.7, with Fernando a further 0.6
behind, while in fourth, Raikkonen in the Lotus was over
two seconds behind the Spaniard. The race leader came in
on lap 7, dropping to ninth, which meant the Ferrari duo
were now heading the field. Felipe changed to the Medium
on lap 8, rejoining seventh and Di Resta also came in at
this time in the Force India. In first place, Fernando’s
advantage over Raikkonen was under half a second, as the
two of them dived into pit lane together on lap 9,
leaving in the same order. This left the Mercedes duo of
Hamilton and Rosberg out in front, followed by Sutil,
Perez, Vettel, Massa sixth, Alonso seventh and Raikkonen
eighth. On lap 12, both Ferraris dispensed with Perez in
the McLaren.
Hamilton pitted on lap 13, with Rosberg coming in next
time round, so that Sutil, the only front runner not to
have pitted yet in the Force India was a temporary
leader ahead of Vettel, who was 0.7 ahead of Felipe with
Fernando an identical gap behind. Perez pitted the
McLaren on lap 16, dropping to 13th. At the front the
gaps were getting smaller, with Felipe now 0.5 behind
Vettel and Fernando 0.6 down on his team-mate. On lap
20, it was Fernando who made his second stop, fitting
another set of Mediums, which dropped him to seventh.
Next time round, Sutil pitted and so did Vettel for his
second stop, also for Mediums, which meant Felipe now
led by 1.4 from Raikkonen and Hamilton was a further 11
seconds behind. Lap 23 and Felipe came in for fresh
rubber, which dropped him to seventh behind Sutil.
Lap 27 and third placed Rosberg retired the Mercedes at
the side of the track, so that Fernando was now third,
chasing the leader Raikkonen and then Hamilton, who both
had only made one stop so far. Behind the Spanish
Ferrari man, Vettel was 1.2 behind, followed by Sutil,
who had Felipe just 0.2 off his tail. At half distance –
lap 29 – as Felipe was pressuring Sutil - a few drops of
rain began to fall at a couple of corners towards the
end of the track, but not enough to require rain tyres.
Fernando had now closed right up to second placed
Hamilton, ducking and diving either side of the
Mercedes, eventually getting past on lap 31, after which
the Englishman immediately pitted. On lap 32, Fernando
was slowed slightly by a Caterham which allowed Vettel
to close up. Raikkonen finally made his second stop on
lap 34, so that Fernando was leading, from Vettel, Sutil
and Felipe, with the Finnish Lotus driver resuming
behind the Brazilian. However, with Raikkonen’s second
stop coming much later than that of his rivals, it was
now clear he was going to the flag without a third stop.
Lap 36 saw Felipe make his third and final stop, again
fitting the Medium Pirellis with Vettel doing the same
next time round, followed in by Button and Grosjean from
eighth and ninth. With 20 of the 58 laps remaining,
Fernando led Sutil by 10.5 as the Spaniard dived into
the pits for his third and final stop, rejoining third.
On fresh rubber, the Ferrari man at first began to close
dramatically on Raikkonen, but once the initial boost
from the tyres was over, the gap between them
stabilised.
Meanwhile, Vettel swept past Hamilton to take third and
Felipe was the next to dispense with the Mercedes man.
Sutil had still not made his final stop, but the Force
India needed new rubber and when the German came in from
second on lap 46, this produced the finishing order
that, at least for the leaders, would remain unchanged
to the flag at the end of 58 laps.
This is a very encouraging start to the 19 race season
for Scuderia Ferrari and the race did not produce the
expected total dominance from Red Bull. However, there
is no time to rest on one’s laurels with the hot and
humid Sepang circuit hosting the Malaysian Grand Prix in
just one week’s time. It will be another tough
challenge, but the result here in Melbourne is a good
morale booster and incentive for everyone at the track
and back in Maranello, to keep pushing hard on the
development of the F138.
Stefano Domenicali:
“First of all, I wish to congratulate the winner. After
winter testing, we had said we were aiming for a podium
in Australia and I am pleased we have reached this first
objective. This is only the first of nineteen races and
we are happy to see Scuderia Ferrari at the top of the
Constructors’ classification: it is an encouraging start
on which we must continue to build our Championship and
today’s result should serve as a motivational push for
all of us, both here at the track and back home in
Maranello. Reliability, pit stops and strategy are as
ever the key factors, but this weekend has thrown up
other interesting topics on which to reflect, relative
to our outright performance level compared to the
competition”.
Fernando Alonso: “We
can claim to have started this season on the right foot,
immediately in the fight with the best. Along with the
results from winter testing, it is a very encouraging
sign that we managed to get the most out of a weekend
that was full of unknown factors, both in qualifying and
the race. I think the three stop strategy was the right
one: with the degradation we had, it would have been
impossible to manage on one less and bringing forward
the second one by a few laps meant I was able to pass
Vettel and Sutil. Finishing ahead of the Red Bull tastes
like a win, even if we know that despite today’s race
result, they are still the quickest. Now we can expect
another weekend with very changeable weather and one
that also puts a lot of stress on the cars from a
mechanical point of view and on the drivers, from a
physical one. But we can tackle it calmly on the back of
this good result”.
Felipe Massa: “This
is definitely a very positive start to the season,
especially because this is a track where I have always
suffered. We have shown that our car is competitive,
with a good race pace and that is down to all the hard
work done during winter testing. I had an attacking
start to my race, in which I was immediately fighting
for the top places. Maybe if we had brought forward the
second stop, as Fernando did, the podium would have been
within my grasp, but I am still very happy with my
result. Definitely, we are at a good level, but now we
must carefully analyse every smallest detail to try and
improve our car”.
Pat Fry: “In the
morning, qualifying was very tough as it was vital to
choose the right tyre at the most opportune moment and
we managed it without too much hesitation. It was not
easy understanding what was the real gap to the front
runners, as in some conditions it is not always clear.
This afternoon, we had a good race pace and both drivers
performed well without making any mistakes. But we are
aware that we still have a lot of work to do if we want
to continue to improve. Maybe we could have risked a two
stop strategy, but given the unknowns linked to tyre
degradation, we preferred not to do that. In the next
races, it will be vital to understand the tyre
behaviour, in order to choose the best strategies.”
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