Ferrari Draw First Blood As Vettel Wins Season-Opener At Australia

It was all smiles for Ferrari and some consolation for Mercedes at the conclusion of the highly anticipated Australian Grand prix of 2018. There’s no better way to start the season either, especially where Ferrari are concerned.

No rocket science there. For the start of the 2018 F1 season produced exactly the same result that it did for Ferrari the previous season. In lighter vein, it could be said you know its Sebastian Vettel at the top step of the podium when it’s the season-opener at Melbourne. Perhaps it’s destiny. Perhaps it’s critical performance. Or perhaps it’s a combination of both but of late, it seems the Melbourne Grand prix complements Sebastian Vettel ably.

No high-speed collisions, no faltering regarding pit strategies and no team orders either. Vettel piped archrival Lewis Hamilton to secure his second back-to-back victory at the Australian Grand prix at Melbourne, following his ravishing triumph in 2017.

But it could be said, at no stage until lap 27 did it look certain if the German driver held any possible chance of screeching to the top end of the track. Lest if be forgotten that an unlikely Ferrari breakthrough was possibly only because of the safety car intervention at the back of Romain Grosjean’s Hass pulling along the side of the track.

After getting off to a comfortable, clean start, Hamilton kept up the pace, being followed closely by Kimi Raikkonen in his SF 71H. As the duo filed through safely to the first corner and in turn to several initial laps, Vettel kept up the pace, holding off Verstappen and Ricciardo who were trailing the Ferrari.

Meanwhile at the front of the grid, Hamilton kept up the pace and looked after his tyres well before Kimi upped the pace a little bit in setting some impressive middle sector times.

The Iceman would later be the first to head into the pits, being asked to box by the team by lap 15. From that moment, Vettel, who went ahead, was trailing the then race leader, Lewis Hamilton. Right then, Mercedes responded by asking Hamilton to pit, which effectively meant, handing the lead of the race Sebastian Vettel.

Exactly then came upon the dreaded safety car intervention, particularly unexpected from the Mercedes’ point of the view, on account of the Haas’ engine failure. Vettel’s team, reacting brilliantly at the occurrence during lap 27 asked Sebastian to box for a tyre change. It was no lame pit stop either.

It ultimately meant that the four-time world champion would exit the pit ahead of Lewis Hamilton who began his chase of the German driver from the onset of lap 29.

Eventually, it would result in Vettel chipping away with arguably better pace and stronger tyre management when compared to the Briton, who was struggling for grips.

Meanwhile, even before the halfway stage, the Australian Grand prix saw not one but five race retirements including both the Haas cars of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, both of whom had demonstrated great race pace in impressive qualifying runs on Saturday. Additionally, there was heartbreak for the debutant Sergey Sirtokin, who had anything but a dream debut following a mechanical failure in his Williams. That said, Sauber’s Marcus Erricsson too had an early race retirement to register an underwhelming race performance.

That said, the action at the front of the grid seemed visibly in control of eventual race winner, Sebastian Vettel who held up the marauding charge of eventual second-placed Lewis Hamilton.

Although a key battle transpired at the immediate tail of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes with Kimi Raikkonen finding himself from the ever-threatening assault of local favourite Daniel Ricciardo.

The battle for third between the Finn and the Australian saw fans hold to the edge of their seats between laps 35 and 58 as the action at the very front was increasingly being dominated by Sebastian Vettel. Arguably through better tyre management and better race pace, Kimi stayed ahead of the ever-smiling Aussie and used all his prudence and experience to stay in control of the proceedings. For 23 daunting laps, Ricciardo kept coming hard at Raikkonen even though not to much success but remained adrift of Kimi’s tail-wing by at least 1.4 seconds.

While it’s just the kind of start Ferrari would have wanted, they would be vary of Mercedes’ reliability, an early sign of which they surely got on Saturday as Lewis clinched his seventh pole at Melbourne. Thankfully for Ferrari though, it was bettered by Vettel’s third win at Australia.