Nico Rosberg has shown the great leading of Mercedes in the beginning of this season; the German driver has taken the victory in the Australian Grand Prix and more than 20 seconds ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, who obtains his first podium in this competition. Behind the Red Bull driver has finished the rookie Kevin Magnussen, as said, he finishes on the podium in his first race in Formula One. Fernando Alonso couldn’t achieve more than a fifth place, while Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel left the race early.
Nico Rosberg has taken the fourth victory of his career in the start this exciting event. Rosberg started leading the race like lightning after overtaking his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, who three laps later had to abandon the race because of a breakdown in his Mercedes engine. The German started with a strong pace unattainable for Daniel Ricciardo, who maintained the second position ahead of Kevin Magnussen. The Danish after a regular start had overtaken Hamilton easily.
Behind, the start was not too quiet, and it even had to be aborted after the two Marussia remained standing, but when lights went off, only at the first corner had already been accidents where Kamui Kobayashi met Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa. The Finn from Ferrari could continue smoothly but Massa was stuck in the gravel with no options to come back to the race. Two corners later the Sauber of Gutierrez spun causing a big scare to defending champion Sebastian Vettel, who had started badly the race due to the loss of power of his Red Bull; later on lap four he went to the box and abandoned the race.
The laps went by and Rosberg was getting a good gap with Ricciardo and a very quiet Magnussen behind. From the fourth place a great struggle raged between Alonso and Hulkenberg, where the Spaniard could not cope with the Force India, which caused that behind, his teammate Raikkonen plus the two Toro Rosso, Bottas and Button were in a chain behind them. Bottas seemed to have the best pace but after overtaking Raikkonen and trying to outdo the other Ferrari, his left rear wheel crashed into the wall in an unfortunate action, causing his tyre to explode and leave pieces of rubber in the middle of the track.
This action caused the coming of the Safety Car to the track, and the vast majority of drivers went to pits for tyre changes, the vast majority choosing new soft compound. This maneuver primarily benefited Button, who was placed on the sixth position after being the whole race in tenth. After regrouping all the drivers the safety car left and the action came back to the track. More laps went by and there were no major changes in the classification, except the great comeback Bottas who touched again with Raikkonen, who had many problems with the brakes; they had even made him lose a position with Vergne.
On lap 32 the pit stop dance began again, with all drivers putting the medium compound to reach their goal. Again Button was the smartest and could go gout ahead of Alonso and Hulkenberg. The Spaniard had been also benefited from the move to overtake the German from Force India after being behind him throughout the race. In those laps we also saw the three last abandonments of the day; first the Caterham driven by Marcus Ericsson, to avoid breaking the engine he stopped the car, while short time later with a few turns of distance between them, the two Lotus , as expected, also had to stop their cars thanks to a damage in the power unit of Renault.
During the last 20 laps few position changed, but especially Valtteri Bottas was showcased in the latter part of the race trying to beat Jean-Eric Vergne and Nico Hulkenberg to get in the sixth place. Magnussen pressed hard in order to reach Ricciardo but at the end did not have the opportunity.
Jenson Button thanks to its good strategy achieves the fourth place after having a bad qualifying yesterday, while Fernando Alonso finally was able to maintain the starting position, but with a little concern about the pace of the Ferrari compared to rivals, and Kimi Raikkonen could not even not move from ninth in his debut with the Maranello team. Improvements are really needed in the F14-T. Behind the Spaniard has finished Valtteri Bottas that despite the initial incident has done a brilliant race, and seems to have a very competitive Williams. Hulkenberg crossed the finish line seventh ahead of Vergne, who like his teammate, have managed to make a very good performance , especially the Russian who thus being a rookie obtained the first point in his first race.
That’s all we can extract from this exciting first race of the year, the Great Circus rest until within two weeks where the cars will sound again the Sepang circuit to compete in the Malaysian Grand Prix, which offers a safe weekend as exciting and interesting as this. Finally here we leave the final classification of the Grand Prix of Australia 2014:
Pos. | Driver | Team | Diff. | Points | |
1 | #6 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes AMG | 1:32:58.710 | 25 |
2 | #3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull Racing Renault | + 24.5 s | 17 |
3 | #20 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren Mercedes | + 26.7 s | 15 |
4 | #22 | Jenson Button | McLaren Mercedes | + 29.9 s | 12 |
5 | #14 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | + 34.1 s | 10 |
6 | #77 | Valterri Bottas | Williams Martini Mercedes | + 47.6 s | 8 |
7 | #27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India Mercedes | + 50.7 s | 6 |
8 | #7 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | + 57.7 s | 4 |
9 | #25 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso Renault | + 60.4 s | 2 |
10 | #26 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso Renault | + 63.5 s | 1 |
11 | #11 | Sergio Pérez | Force India Mercedes | + 85.9 s | |
12 | #99 | Adrian Sutil | Sauber Ferrari | + 1 lap | |
13 | #21 | Esteban Gutiérrez | Sauber Ferrari | + 1 lap | |
14 | #4 | Max Chilton | Marussia Ferrari | + 2 laps | |
15 | #17 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia Ferrari | + 8 laps | |
16 | #8 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus Renault | Out | |
17 | #13 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus Renault | Out | |
18 | #9 | Marcus Ericsson | Caterham Renault | Out | |
19 | #1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing Renault | Out | |
20 | #44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes AMG | Out | |
21 | #19 | Felipe Massa | Williams Martini Mercedes | Out | |
22 | #10 | Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham Renault | Out |