Jenson Button led from the first corner to give McLaren the first victory of the season. Defending Champion, Sebastian Vettel, finished second with Pole sitter Lewis Hamilton in third and Mark Webber fourth. Performances of the day go to Pastor Maldonado, who was challenging Fernando Alonso for fifth until he crashed out on the last lap, and Sergio Perez, who finished eighth after starting on the back row and held the same pace as the leaders. The news before the race was that both HRTs were not allowed to race due to their slow qualification pace.
The race started with Button overtaking Hamilton going into the first corner. Vettel had got himself ahead of Webber into fifth and Alonso put himself eighth. The surprise of qualifying, Romain Grosjean, couldn't keep third and immediately found himself sixth. The big contact from the start saw Daniel Ricciardo hit Bruno Senna who was trying to re-emerge onto the track, the Brazilian span but was able to continue.
Vettel began his charge from the off and overtook Nico Rosberg to move into fourth on the second lap. It was this lap that saw Nico Hulkenberg's return to racing end prematurely after not being able to recover from damage sustained from the first corner. Grosjean's debut F1 race also ended abruptly when Maldonado hit the Lotus, causing the front wheel shaft to break.
Vettel continued to charge and managed to overtake Michael Schumacher on lap-11. The Mercedes car looked to have suffered a failure which allowed Vettel an easy pass and Schumacher was then forced to retire from the race. Another big winner was Kimi Raikkonen who came from 18th to sit eighth.
The first pit window arrived around lap-19 and Button played the strategy much better. He was able to get the undercut against Hamilton to retain his lead. But Hamilton ended up getting stuck behind Perez until lap-21 which allowed Button to gain an 11-second lead.
Massa's Ferrari was suffering in contrast to Alonso's and he lost places to Raikkonen and Kamui Kobayashi to end up in ninth after 27-laps. Ten laps later, Vitaly Petrov's Caterham broke down by the start-finish straight which caused a Safety Car. Vettel used this window as an opportunity to pit and it allowed him to come out ahead of Hamilton.
Petrov's teammate, Heikki Kovalainen suffered steering problems which forced him to retire a lap before the Safety Car came in on lap-41. Massa's weekend got even worse when he and Senna collided, both cars suffered punctures but Senna made it back to the pits whereas Massa had to retire with 11-laps remaining.
Senna's damage turned out to be terminal and he too had to retire two laps before the end. The final incident came on the lap when Maldonado drove onto the astroturf which caused him to spin into a wall and end his race despite still being classified. It was a shame as the vastly improved Williams car was sitting comfortably in sixth and even challenging Alonso's Ferrari for fifth. Post-race analysis has seen Heikki Kovalainen receive a five place grid penalty next week for illegally overtaking during the Safety Car period. Race result:
1.Button (McLaren), 2.Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), 3.Hamilton (McLaren), 4.Webber (Red Bull), 5.Alonso (Ferrari), 6.Kobayashi (Sauber), 7.Raikkonen (Lotus), 8.Perez (Sauber), 9.Ricciardo (Toro Rosso), 10.Di Resta (Force India), 11.Vergne (Toro Rosso), 12.Rosberg (Mercedes), 13.Maldonado (Williams), 14.Glock (Marussia), 15.Pic (Marussia) DNF: Hulkenberg (Force India), Grosjean (Renault), Schumacher (Mercedes), Petrov (Caterham), Kovalainen (Caterham), Massa (Ferrari), Senna (Williams) DNS: De La Rosa (HRT), Karthikeyan (HRT).
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