Jenson Button bought his MP4-25 home to win in Australia, moving within six points of the Championship leader Fernando Alonso. With the media and fans bemoaning the boring race in Bahrain, Melbourne’s Albert Park had much to live up to. And we were not disappointed.
The elements had their say at the start of the race, and the whole grid started on intermediate tyres. Alonso had a poor start falling from third on the grid and managed to tag Button into the first corner and found himself pointing the wrong way. Kamui Kobayashi, Sebastian Buemi and Nico Hulkenberg had a heavy crash, and inevitably, the safety car was deployed.
Lap five saw the safety car come in, and a lap later Button made an inspired choice to pit for slicks. His decision seemed premature as he had an off after rejoining the race, but just two laps later the whole field seemed to think it a good idea to join Button on dry-weather tyres, by now running a second behind race leader Sebastian Vettel.
But on lap 20, Vettel’s Red Bull went off into the gravel at turn 13 with a ‘wheel related failure’, after looking as though he was comfortably going to win the race. So two races, two pole positions and, unfortunately a failure to win both times for Red Bull’s Vettel; hardly the start he would have wanted to his season.
Lewis Hamilton was being held off in fourth by Kubica’s Renault, but Hamilton would have to stop again for tyres and would need to fight through the field again, catching Massa and Alonso. But it was Webber that was pushing behind Hamilton, so much so that he ran into Hamilton and took them both off into the gravel. Webber later apologised to Hamilton for the ‘racing incident’.
Jenson Button’s call to change to slicks before anyone else, had clearly won him the race, a gamble that had paid off. Robert Kubica’s Renault eventually came in second, with Massa third and Alonso in fourth. Nico Rosberg finished fifth, with Hamilton recovering from his off with Webber to finish sixth.
Lewis Hamilton was publicly critical of the team’s choice of strategy, bringing him in a second time for tyres; but Whitmarsh defended the action, saying that Lewis’ tyres were graining and he would not make it to the end of the race. Would his tyres have lasted? Who knows. Had he stayed out on the tyres, with his pace he would have probably caught Kubica’s Renault and secured a McLaren one-two, but again, we will never know.
I was impressed with McLaren’s performance in Australia. Jenson Button proved that he could win with McLaren and, despite suffering a forced crash from Webber, and the team’s decision to two stop him clearly stopped him from taking a step on the podium, Lewis Hamilton drove the race of his life, making him my driver of the day.
So the World Championship, after a thrilling race, is lead by Fernando Alonso on 37, Massa on 33, Button on 31, Hamilton 23 and Rosberg on 20. In the constructors’, Ferrari lead with 70 from McLaren on 54, Mercedes 29 and Renault and Red Bull on 18.
And so the Formula One circus moves on to Malaysia this week. Early reports suggest that we may well see more of the wet stuff come race day on Sunday. That will surely make for an interesting race. Some big questions for me this weekend; will Vettel be able to finish a race? Can McLaren win again? Will Lewis recover from the situation in Australia?
Pictures courtesy www.mclaren.com with thanks to the McLaren Media Centre
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