1978 was the last time Lotus won the first race of the season and that year they went on to win both the Drivers and the Constructors Championships. In 2013, Kimi Raikkonen has got off to the best start in his bid to lift the Drivers crown this year. His two pit stop strategy proved to be the better one in the dry Australian race and the Finn ended up easing to victory with Fernando Alonso being a bit behind in second.
The pace that everyone thought the Red Bulls had was largely non-existent during the race. Sebastian Vettel did lead until the first pit stops from Pole but ended up finishing third whereas an awful start from Mark Webber virtually cost him a decent a place and ended up finishing sixth.
Lewis Hamilton's first race for Mercedes saw him finish fifth behind the rejuvenated Felipe Massa. But Hamilton will surely take some solace that his former team mate, Jenson Button, could only manage ninth with Sergio Perez just missing out on the points. Paul Di Resta managed to finish eighth but the performance of the race was Adrian Sutil who ended up leading for a lot of it but the supersoft tyres cost him a potential podium or even fourth place and he ended up slipping down to seventh.
Before the race had started, Nico Hulkenberg had to pull out due to a problem with the fuelling area on the car. Despite not getting the 107% time, Charles Pic did start at the back of the grid in the Caterham. From the start, Vettel got away cleanly and both Ferraris were just as good as last year at getting off the line, Massa moved up to second with Alonso third. Webber had fallen down to seventh with Hamilton, Raikkonen and Rosberg also all overtaking the slow Red Bull. The only 'incident' saw Daniel Ricciardo go off track and rejoin 21st.
By the second lap, Vettel had already gained a two second lead and Raikkonen overtook Hamilton to go fourth. With the top ten all on the supersoft tyres, Button came in on lap four, Webber lap six and Vettel lap seven to go on to the medium tyres. Massa pitted on lap nine and ended up coming out ahead of Vettel. Raikkonen pitted on lap ten and just came out behind Alonso and Pastor Maldonado, but the Williams ended up going off track, probably distracted from the action coming out of the pits, and allowed Raikkonen through.
By lap-14, Sutil had the lead of the race due to not having pitted and having started on the medium tyre. At the beginning, the Force India was slowing the pack down but he was soon setting the pace and even ended up getting a second and a half ahead. Alonso pitted again on lap-21 as everyone but Raikkonen was on a three stop race. Sutil and Vettel pitted on lap-22 and the Force India stayed ahead of the Red Bull but Alonso ended up ahead of both of them.
Vettel finally managed to overtake Sutil a lap later. A poor pit judgement by Ferrari saw Massa pit on lap-24 but it cost him dearly as he ended up coming out behind all three. Massa may have felt that he could have done a two stop and whilst both Alonso and Vettel were behind Sutil, Ferrari seemed to be okay with that. But as soon as Sutil was behind the two, Ferrari pulled Massa in straight away and it potentially cost him a shot at the podium.
Maldonado's race lasted 25-laps when he hit the wet yellow line on the home straight, this caused the Williams to spin and then ultimately get beached in the gravel track. Two laps later, Nico Rosberg had to pull over and retire from the race due to electronic problems which was a common theme for Mercedes last season, it also means that Rosberg has now failed to finish five of his last seven races.
There was a slight threat of rain on lap-30 but it came and went without any need for intermediates or even wets. Alonso overtook Hamilton on the next lap to take second before Hamilton pitted. Raikkonen pitted for the second and last time on lap-34, he came out behind Massa in fifth. Four laps later, Vettel pitted as did Alonso on lap-39, this left Sutil back in front with Raikkonen now up to second.
Daniel Ricciardo became the last retirement on lap-41 due to a broken exhaust. Raikkonen managed to overtake Sutil on lap-43 to take the lead of the race for the first time. The fresher tyres of Alonso saw the Ferrari overtake Sutil on lap-46 and the Spaniard had 12-laps to try and track down the Lotus. Sutil had to pit on lap-47 to fulfil the two compound rule, he came out in fifth. But with 11-laps remaining, the supersofts quickly degraded and cost Sutil a couple of places on lap-51 as Hamilton and Webber both overtook the stricken Force India. For a time, Alonso did look to be closing the gap on Raikkonen but the Finn had the last word with a quickest lap on the penultimate to drive home his advantage and ease to take the first race of the season. Result:
1.Raikkonen (Lotus), 2.Alonso (Ferrari), 3.Vettel (Red Bull), 4.Massa (Ferrari), 5.Hamilton (McLaren), 6.Webber (Red Bull), 7.Sutil (Force India), 8.Di Resta (Force India), 9.Button (McLaren), 10.Grosjean (Lotus), 11.Perez (McLaren), 12.Vergne (Toro Rosso), 13.Gutierrez (Sauber), 14.Bottas (Williams), 15.Bianchi (Marussia) 16.Pic (Caterham), 17.Chilton (Marussia), 18.Van Der Garde (Caterham) DNF: Maldonado (Williams), Rosberg (Mercedes), Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) DNS: Hulkenberg (Sauber)
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