Brilliant Button wins Melbourne thriller

Mar.28 (YF1) Jenson Button powered his McLaren Mercedes to victory in the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park after a sensational drive in tricky conditions in Melbourne.

On the other side of the coin it was heart break for Sebastian Vettel as once again with victory in apparently in sight, the Red Bull came to a halt when the front brake disk failed ending his race on the spot.

Button, the reigning F1 World Champion played a master card by pitting early than all his rivals, for slick tyres, and thereafter controlled of the race while behind him the “Formula 1 show” returned big time with numerous incidents to talk about.

Melbourne’s Albert Park delivered a riveting show with action aplenty, great racing, over taking galore – an afternoon of great moments that will have gone a long way reversing the negative perception that emerged after the opening round in Bahrain.

Action packed opening lap

With everyone on intermediates, a wet track surface and drizzle, drama started shortly after the red lights went off and the field streamed into Turn 1. Vettel got a great start and was up and gone, behind him Massa burst from the third row into second place with Webber in tow. Behind them Fernando Alonso, who was slow off the line and swamped, received a tap at the apex of the first corner which saw him spin into the face of on coming traffic.

Another victim of the melee was Michael Schumacher who clipped the out of control Ferrari and damaged his front wing. The incident forced the German into the pits for a front nose cone replacement.

Half way around Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber, minus a front wing, slammed into the wall before skimming out of control over the grass and across the track, collecting Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams in the process. Sebastien Buemi beached his Toro Rosso. The trio were out on the spot. And the safety car deployed.

Button delivers a champion performance

Back to the man of the day… Not enough can be said of Button’s victory which will go a long way to shut up his critics and assert himself within his new team. His delight was obvious as he roared into his team intercom shortly after crossing the finish line, “I feel so good.”

His early pit visit to change to slicks on lap seven was an inspired decision which proved decisive, despite going off onto the sand on his out lap on fresh rubber. This was not enough to hamper the Briton who thereafter always had a good cushion Robert Kubica gave Renault a better result than they would have imagined with a strong drive, which saw him fend off the attentions of both Ferrari drivers for most of the race.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa finished third after keeping team mate Fernando Alonso in check for most of the race. The Spaniard finished fourth but was victim of a first lap incident which saw him spin, as a result from what appeared to be a tap from Button, but recovered to scythe his way through the field but spent the rest of the afternoon staring at the back of Massa’s Ferrari.

No team orders at Ferrari may have cost the reds

Credit to the Maranello team for sticking to their “no team orders” policy, however in this instance the wisdom could be questioned as Alonso was clearly faster than Massa and was on a charge. After a few attempts to get by the Brazilian, the Spaniard appeared to lose his momentum. Nevertheless he still tops the championship standings by four points aver Massa.

With a handful of laps Alonso had his mirrors full of Lewis Hamilton (McLaren Mercedes) and Mark Webber (Red Bull Racing) who on fresh rubber, after both making a pit stop to change tyres were by far quickest drivers out on track for the latter quarter of the race.

Both Hamilton and Webber had feisty afternoon’s which had a bad ending. Hamilton was attacking Alonso’s fourth place at every opportunity. Alonso when told by his radio how close Hamilton was to him, the Spaniard replied: “I do not want to know!”

Webber meanwhile was all over the back of the McLaren clearly intent on pouncing. On lap 56 the inevitable happened at Turn 13 with Hamilton poking at Alonso on the outside at Turn 13, Webber perhaps sensing a gap misses his braking point and ploughs into the side of Hamilton. Both recover but Hamilton’s fourth place ambitions shelved and Webber forced into the pits for a front wing change.

Hamilton a candidate for ““Drive of the Day”

The fact is that Hamilton would probably qualify for “Drive of the Day” on Sunday in Melbourne. From 11th on the grid he was soon in the mix at the front, actually getting past Button early on and running a comfortable third until his team inexplicably called him in for fresh rubber. Soon it was clear that someone on the McLaren pit wall had seriously erred in their calculation.

Hamilton finished sixth, but was denied at least third place and perhaps even the runner-up slot. He told BBC, “I probably had one of the drives of my life but unfortunately due to the strategy I got put back and I was taken out by Mark Webber. I drove my heart out today and I think I deserved better. The strategy was not right. Everyone else in front of me did one stop and I did two.”

Big winner out of the Webber/Hamilton feud was Nico Rosberg (Mercedes GP) who looked destined for seventh place but a rather subdued race for the German saw him inherit fifth place.

Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi stayed out of trouble to take seventh place for his team ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the Williams who was once again the best of the Cosworth runners in eighth. The Brazilian and his team will no doubt look at the replay of Alonso going past the Williams as if it was standing still. Okay Alonso was on a charge but still the Ferrari power simply dwarfed the Cosworth horses.

Webber salvaged ninth place after qualifying second and running fastest of all throughout most of the afternoon on his home circuit. In truth he should have won at home after his team mate’s brakes expired. Alas “desperation” would be an apt word to describe his incident packed race.

Picking up the final point on the day was Schumacher whose race was compromised on the first corner, forcing the 41 year old to play catch up. Notably, as the oldest driver on track his progress was severely hampered by the youngest driver in F1 for most of the race.

Vettel waiting for some good luck

Luck has deserted Vettel this March, as two sure wins in two races have virtually come to naught. Fourth place in Bahrain is hardly just rewards for the German who in the Adrian Newey penned Red Bull RB6 is arguably the quickest package on the grid. Spark plug failure, brake failure, what next he must be asking himself.

Among his first comments to the German-speaking press was the well-known curse “Scheisse”, while to the English reporters Vettel said the frustration “breaks my balls”.

To BBC he said, “There is not much I can say, I had a brake failure at Turn 13 and earlier in the lap I had felt vibrations. Conditions were very difficult but to finish first, you have to first finish – we are all pushing and trying to do our best, it’s nobody’s fault but we need to get on top of it to make sure we have a solid race and see the chequered flag in Malaysia.”

Toro Rosso’s Alguersuari, as mentioned spent the better part of his afternoon dueling with Schmacher, finished just out of the points in 11th and ahead of fellow Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber) who was classified 12th.

Lotus again best of the newbies

Best of the new team/driver combos was 13th placed Heikki Kovalainen in the Lotus who was two laps down on Button. Five laps down was Karun Chandhok who at least finished a Grand Prix for the first time in his short career with Hispania Racing. They were the last two drivers classified as there were only 14 finishers.

A race of attrition with ten retirements

First retirement in Melbourne was Jarno Trulli (Lotus) failed to complete a lap while Bruno Senna’s (Hispania Racing) race ended after five laps – both due to hydraulic problems.

Also not registering any racing laps (as reported above) were Kobayashi, Hulkenberg and Buemi.

Adrian Sutil (Force India) suffered a loss of power from his engine forcing him to park the VJM03 with nine laps on the board.

Vitaly Petrov (Renault) was looking strong early on running in the top ten. After changing to slicks the Russian rookie got caught out under braking in Turn 3. His race ended with his car beached in the gravel trap.

Fortunately or unfortunately Virgin Racing were unable to ascertain that the new size of their fuel tank was up to finishing a race as on lap 31 Lucas di Grassi became a spectator and exactly 10 laps later team mate Timo Glock joined him on the sidelines.

2010 Australian Grand Prix Results

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Grid	Pts
1	1	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	58	Winner	4	25
2	11	Robert Kubica	Renault	58	+12.0 secs	9	18
3	7	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	58	+14.4 secs	5	15
4	8	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	58	+16.3 secs	3	12
5	4	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	58	+16.6 secs	6	10
6	2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+29.8 secs	11	8
7	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	58	+59.8 secs	13	6
8	9	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	58	+60.5 secs	8	4
9	6	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	58	+67.3 secs	2	2
10	3	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	58	+69.3 secs	7	1
11	17	Jaime Alguersuari	STR-Ferrari	58	+71.3 secs	17
12	22	Pedro de la Rosa	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	58	+74.0 secs	14
13	19	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	56	+2 Laps	19
14	20	Karun Chandhok	HRT-Cosworth	53	+5 Laps	22
Ret	24	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	41	+17 Laps	23
Ret	25	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	31	+32 Laps	24
Ret	5	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	25	+33 Laps	1
Ret	14	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	9	+49 Laps	10
Ret	12	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	9	+49 Laps	18
Ret	21	Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	4	+54 Laps	21
Ret	16	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	0	+58 Laps	12
Ret	10	Nico Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	0	+58 Laps	15
Ret	23	Kamui Kobayashi	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	0	+58 Laps	16
Ret	18	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	0	+58 Laps	20