Australian GP Race: Button untouchable in Melbourne

McLaren’s Jenson Button drove a pluperfect race to take the lead of the world championship at Melbourne's Albert Park on Sunday, keeping his head and his lead even when a safety car intervention appeared to throw a beaten Sebastian Vettel a lifeline.

The 2009 world champion scored his third Australian Grand Prix victory in four years by taking the lead at the start from team mate Lewis Hamilton, who held a distant second until Vitaly Petrov stopped on the pit straight with power steering problems in his Caterham on the 36th lap and triggered the safety car deployment. McLaren had just pitted both of their cars that lap, but Vettel decided to stay out one longer and that, allied to benefit from the safety car, was enough to move his Red Bull into second.

When the racing resumed on Lap 42 Button simply checked out and left Vettel to fend off Hamilton and team mate Mark Webber, who’d been condemned to an afternoon of fighting back after a first-corner clash involving his Red Bull, Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus and Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India.

As Vettel tried to claw back the deficit to Button, Webber closed in on Hamilton, whose McLaren never seemed as well balanced as his team mate’s. By the flag, Button was a comfortable 2.1s ahead of Vettel, with Hamilton 1.9s further down and Webber within 0.4s of him.

Further back, Fernando Alonso scored an excellent fifth for Ferrari after making a fantastic start to end the opening lap in eighth place from 12th on the grid. As the fast-starting Mercedes of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg faded - the former went off in Turn One on the 11th lap and damaged his car sufficiently to have to retire, and the latter simply lacked competitive pace - he moved into contention for his finishing position. It was a typically tough and professional race from the Spaniard.

In the latter stages he was under huge pressure from Pastor Maldonado, who had seemingly pushed Lotus’s Romain Grosjean into early retirement on the second lap but went unpunished by the stewards. The Williams was showing excellent pace and the Venezuelan was dogging Alonso’s wheel tracks until he came to grief in Turn Six, where earlier he’d lost ground with a moment.

This time he lost control and smacked the wall hard on the 57th lap, throwing away sixth place and setting up a fierce battle between the Saubers of Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez, Raikkonen’s Lotus, the Toro Rossos of Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo, and Paul di Resta’s Force India.

As Rosberg’s Mercedes ahead of them suddenly slowed on the last lap after a collision with Perez had deflated the left-rear tyre, Kobayashi made it home sixth from Raikkonen. Perez clung on for eighth, with Ricciardo separated from him by 0.0s, Di Resta 0.1s further back, and Vergne another 0.1s down and just outside the points after a promising debut. It was breath-taking stuff.

Rosberg was classified 12th on a deeply disappointing day for Mercedes, who lacked the pace in the race that they’d shown in qualifying. Williams were similarly distressed. Maldonado was classified 13th, while Bruno Senna was involved in the first corner melee, lost time then, and later had a silly collision with fellow countryman Felipe Massa which cost them both dear. He was a non-finisher in 16th. The incident is still being investigated by the stewards.

Between the Williams duo came the Marussias of Timo Glock and Charles Pic, which ran reliably in what amounted to their first serious test session.

Joining Hulkenberg, whose car was too badly damaged after the first-corner collision, Grosjean, Schumacher, Petrov and Massa on the retirement list was Heikki Kovalainen, whose Caterham dropped out with a left-hand front suspension problem. The Finn also picked up a five-place grid penalty for the next round in Malaysia for overtaking under the safety car.

The result leaves Button in the lead of the world championship with 25 points, to Vettel’s 18, Hamilton’s 15, Webber’s 12 and Alonso’s 10, while McLaren head the constructors’ points with 40 to Red Bull’s 30, Sauber’s 12 and Ferrari’s 10.

Source: Formula 1

 

1. Jenson Button Britain McLaren-Mercedes 58 laps 1hr 34m 09.565s
2. Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault +00m 02.1s
3. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes +00m 04.0s
4. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault +00m 04.5s
5. Fernando Alonso Spain Ferrari-Ferrari +00m 21.5s
6. Kamui Kobayashi Japan Sauber-Ferrari +00m 36.7s
7. Kimi Raikkonen Finland Lotus-Renault +00m 38.0s
8. Sergio Perez Mexico Sauber-Ferrari +00m 39.4s
9. Daniel Ricciardo Australia Toro Rosso-Ferrari +00m 39.5s
10. Paul di Resta Britain Force India-Mercedes +00m 39.7s

11. Jean-Eric Vergne France Toro Rosso-Ferrari +00m 39.8s
12. Nico Rosberg Germany Mercedes-Mercedes +00m 57.6s
13. Pastor Maldonado Venezuela Williams-Renault +1 lap
14. Timo Glock Germany Marussia-Cosworth +1 lap
15. Charles Pic France Marussia-Cosworth +5 laps
16. Bruno Senna Brazil Williams-Renault +6 laps

Rtd. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari-Ferrari 46 laps completed
Rtd. Heikki Kovalainen Finland Caterham-Renault 38 laps completed
Rtd. Vitaly Petrov Russia Caterham-Renault 34 laps completed
Rtd. Michael Schumacher Germany Mercedes-Mercedes 10 laps completed
Rtd. Romain Grosjean France Lotus-Renault 1 lap completed
Rtd. Nico Hulkenberg Germany Force India-Mercedes 0 laps compelted

DNS. Pedro de la Rosa Spain HRT-Cosworth Did not qualify
DNS. Narain Karthikeyan India HRT-Cosworth Did not qualify

 

There is already a thread about the GP in Melbourne,
here's the link.

https://teamspeed.com/forums/pit-sto...pots-grid.html

 

Sorry, but I thought that the previous thread was only for the qualifyng session.

 

Thanks for ruining the race for me. Some of us DVR it to watch later.

 

Knew he won but most of us in north america have not seen it yet, so atleast dont put it in the thread title!!

 

You're a little bit new on this forum, this is why:

 

It's ok this is a nice recap, can add to home page. Thanks mate!

 

I'll put in a request to at least change the thread title and add a spoiler alert. This really sucked the excitement out of my afternoon plans, and the sooner we stop it from doing that to anyone else, the better.

 

While it is unfortunate that this thread spoiled it for many, I do find it dumb that someone planning to watch the race on DVR would wake up and go on teamspeed.com. That's practically begging for a spoiler.

I also DVRd the race. I switched off my iPad and iPhone before going to sleep, so no one would call me with the result, and also to avoid the reflex action of going online. Many sources of spoilers - esp Facebook, a friend emailing me and saying I told you so, etc.

Watch the race, then tap into the media.