Australian Grand Prix - Race Summary

March 20, 2007

And Kimi Raikkonen takes the chequered flag at 2007 ING Australian Grand Prix. Reigning champion Fernando Alonso finished second in his McLaren, followed by the rookie [and Fernando's teammate] Lewis Hamilton walking on the podium in his debut race.

If you thought Formula 1 racing were boring, think again. The race can’t get any more interesting and spectacular, with David Coulthard deciding to take “Aerial Route” literally on Alex Wurz. With Heikki Kovalainen thinking of Albert Park as Park, in literal sense, and driving his Renault in grass quiet a few times. With Takuma Sato finishing ahead of Jenson Button but behind Reubens Barrichello. With Felipe Massa managing to finish at 6th place after starting from 21st place on the grid [and thus proving my predictions for grid positions wrong]. With Williams managing to finish ahead of both of the Toyota’s.

Let’s look at what happened in some details.

Kimi Raikkonen led the race from start to finish in his super fast Ferrari [and we already have a controversy in making for Ferrari] reminding some people of the days of Michael Schumacher when he ruled the roost. Not that I am worrying about it, since it’s just the start of the season and we will see many ups & downs in coming races. For Felipe Massa, the icing-on-the-cake would have been if he had been able to overtake Fisichella at fifth place. But finishing at 6th position from fag-end of the starting grid shows the pace that Ferrari has managed to generate, though I believe he would have managed to finish at 4th or 5th position if he hadn’t tailed Barrichello’s Honda for a long time.

The two McLarens had a pretty eventful race, First was when at the first corner of the first lap Lewis Hamilton managed to salvage second place from his team-mate Fernando Alonso. And then at the last pit-stops when Fernando managed to come out of pit-lane before Lewis Hamilton. Later extending a comfortable 10 seconds lead over the rookie at the end. Tyre choices during the last pit-stops is what worked well for Fernando & not so well for Lewis [for the curious types, Fernando choose soft compound whereas Lewis choose harder compound tyres thus difference in car performance].

BMW-Sauber had a decent GP. Nick managed to take 3rd place at the first corner of first lap, but it lost it during first pit-stops, managing to finish at 4th place. Whereas Robert Kubica had to park his BMW in garage after 36 laps due to some technical glitches.

Renault, looked mediocre at best. Fisichella salvaged some pride by holding back Felipe Massa for last 5 laps and thus finishing at 5th position. As for Heikki, he liked the grass more than the asphalt and thus decided to check out how it feels to drive on the grass. He somehow managing to finish at 10th place. Not the start any reigning World Champion team would like to make.

Williams, as per me, won a battle as Rosberg finished at seventh place, ahead of Toyota’s of Ralf & Trulli. As for Alex Wurz, well, Coulthard had some other plans for him. Plans like move-over-or-i’ll-drive-over-your-car. On the other hand, Toyota, what can I say that hadn’t been said about them already. Ralf & Trulli finished at 8th & 9th place respectively thus managing to score 1 point for them. But the biggest blow for them was that Williams, which is using Toyota’s engines, managed to finish ahead of them. If this scenario can’t propel Toyota to move forward with full force, then god knows what will.

Honda, the “Green Cars”, saving the planet, showing how much they care for earth and increasing global warming, which I believe is a very innovative idea. But if only they have had been equally innovative in the development of their 2007 car. With Barrichello finishing at 11th position and Jenson coming at 15th position [both 1 lap down], shows how much Honda is lagging behind not only to Ferrari’s & McLaren’s but also to Toyota’s & William’s. Super Aguri also had a laugh as Takuma Sato was able to finish ahead of Jenson Button at 12th place and Anthony Davidson finished at 16th place. It shows how much Super Aguri has put into car development when compared to last year.

Red Bull also had a very mediocre start of the season. Mark Webber finished 13th [well behind Williams !!] and we all know about David Coulthard’s aerobatics. Vitantonio Liuzzi’s Toro Rosso finished at 14th place whereas Scott Speed’s had to park his car in the green zone after front tyre burst. Adrian Sutil finished 17th [last place] in his Spyker.

All in all, the season opener was a good race. It showed how many teams were successful in their winter testing and how many teams had a mountain to climb to reach there. And it showed that it is going to be a very interesting season.

This is a cross-posting of article I wrote for desicritics yesterday.