By Simon Baggus
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| Mercedes get a blinding start |
No such monsoons were insight as race day began, instead the F1 gods granted sun.
As the lights turned green the silver arrow of Lewis Hamilton had a storming start, getting the hole-shot into turn one, meanwhile Nico Rosberg had an even better start, that similar to Australia, pulling alongside Vettel, who tried to squeeze him out but had little success, thus conceding his second place around the first turn.
Vettel was then hounded by team mate Ricciardo and the Bulls in turn, tried charging down Rosberg round turns two, three and four, before they settled into position, with Hamilton already disappearing into the distance.
Lap one then and Maldonado was up to his usual, in having contact with another car, this being Bianchi, who was the cause of the incident. Bianchi was given a 5 second stop - go penalty for his actions.
Lap two had more contact this time, Kevin Magnussen giving Raikkonen a love tap, creating a puncture for the Ferrari man, which would shape the rest of his race.
The first retirement came on lap 7 and it was bad news for Lotus again and Maldonado, who was told to box, thus ending his race. Maldonado is still to complete a full race distance.
Magnussen was given a 5 second stop - go penalty on lap 11 for his contact with Raikkonen, a lap after he had to change his nose, from the same incident.
So far then only one retiree, a load of action packed entertainment and now the beginning of the pit stops for the whole field. This was turning out to be a great race so far.
Our second retiree was Jules Bianchi on lap 13, were we going to see as many retire as in Australia?
So after lap 20 we had seen both Mercedes cars already in cruise control, turning their engines down, saving fuel, conserving their tyres, which makes you think, have we really seen the true potential of a Mercedes yet, i highly doubt it, they are just incredible and we must give credit, where credit is due.
Vettel was chasing down Rosberg as the laps went by, but as we saw, Rosberg had it under control and when he put the hammer down, it was a case of Vettel who?! as he pulled out a comfortable margin.
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| The Red Bulls were Mercedes' nearest challengers |
So we had Hamilton leading the way by 10 seconds, with team mate Rosberg in second controlling everything Vettel had to offer, Ricciardo was having a fine drive again, running in fourth place after being passed by Vettel earlier on. Alonso again was running in 5th place in an under performing car. Hulkenberg was having a fine drive in 6th place, also leading the race at one point due to pit stops, running on a two stop strategy, with Button running 7th after starting 10th and the two Williams cars of Massa and Bottas progressing up the field as i had predicted with the warm dry weather helping their cars performance. Kvyat was running in the top ten again like in Australia, showing his maturity once again.
With rain on the horizon, it was twitchy bum time on the paddock wall, it did not materialise though and the race ran full distance without disruption.
The next lot of pitstops played out and all was unchanged at the front, it was Mercedes running first and second and commanding the entire race. Which was nice to see.
Sutil was our next casualty from the race to end his dismal weekend in the Sauber, followed by team mate Gutierrez a few laps later, who was actually having a decent run out.
A horrid ten laps then for Ricciardo, who came in for his mandatory pit stop, only to not have his front left wheel put on properly, causing him to stop in the pit lane and lose a whole lap. He later received a 10 second stop - go penalty for these actions. That was not all though before the penalty he ran over a curb which dislodged his front wing, causing a puncture and another trip back to the pits, on lap 53 the team called it a day and he pulled into retirement. What was looking like a solid finish after his disqualification in Australia, turned out to be another weekend to forget. Maybe Australians are not meant to be at Red Bull.
The last six laps of the race proved very interesting to say the least. More team orders for Massa, who completely ignored them, to everyones amusement. Bottas chasing down and getting frustrated and Button being the beneficiary of all this to hold onto P6 at the chequered flag.
Hamilton decided it was time. He let the arrow loose, pumped in a time 2 seconds faster than anyone else, then cruised again till the end of the race, very much Vettel like of last season.
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| No one could deny Lewis |
Again at the rear of the field doing his own thing, was Max Chilton, bringing his car home for his 100% record, finishing. I wonder if he can go two season?.
So Hamilton stood on top of the podium, rocking his new fuzzy hair, getting the pole, the win and the fastest lap. Rosberg was second and Vettel was third. All dripping with sweat and Champaign.
The rest of the order was as follows;
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| Alonso in action to 4th on the road |
4, Alonso 5, Hulkenberg 6, Button 7, Massa 8, Bottas 9, Magnussen 10, Kvyat 11, Grosjean 12, Raikkonen 13, Kobayashi 14, Ericsson 15, Chilton.
Perez did not even start the race so was a retiree before the race began.
Many teams got both cars home this weekend, which is a good sign of reliability. These included, Mercedes, McLaren, Williams, Caterham and Ferrari.
What was also very interesting to see, was the fuel consumption by a %, when you study this data you can see Red Bull have had to push much harder than every other team to finish where they did. Mercedes and especially Hamilton had one of the best fuel consumptions of the whole grid, which just shows he was not pushing at all. Same is said for Rosberg.
I think people are being deluded into thinking Red Bull are closer than they actually are, when in fact they are still miles behind the pace of the Mercedes, as is everyone else, when you take into consideration, Mercedes turned there engines down on lap 20 and had very good fuel consumption, showing they could push much harder if they wanted too, with there winning margin so massive.
So two dominant Mercedes wins into the season, they are leading the constructors and drivers standings. I do not think we will see any change at the top for the next race either, which is only one week away in Bahrain.
Thank you all for reading, what an enjoyable race it has been, i shall see you in a weeks time for the Bahrain GP on the 4-6 April.
Simon Baggus
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