Button drives McLaren to victory in Melbourne

 

Roar Rookie

By The Radical, 20 Mar 2012 The Radical is a Roar Rookie

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 Australian Grand Prix, bruno senna, felipe massa, Formula One, Jean-Eric Vergne, Kamui Kobayashi, Mark Webber, Michael Schumacher, nico rosberg, Sebas­t­ian Vet­tel, Timo Glock

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In an omi­nous sign for his competitors, Jen­son But­ton cruised to vic­tory at the season-opening Aus­tralian Grand Prix. The Briton’s third tri­umph Down Under affirms the notion that McLaren are the team to beat this season.

The team didn’t have it all their way, with Lewis Hamil­ton squan­der­ing sec­ond place to reign­ing-World Cham­pion Sebas­t­ian Vet­tel, fol­low­ing the inter­ven­tion of the safety car mid-race.

Button’s win was never really in ques­tion, lead­ing by over ten sec­onds prior to the safety car before hold­ing off a fast-fin­ish­ing Vet­tel to the flag.

Mark Web­ber enjoyed his best out­ing on home soil despite another botched start, which saw the Aus­tralian drop to tenth.

He was lucky to escape being crunched at turn one, run­ning closely with Hamil­ton in the dying stages of the race.

It was Hamil­ton who was most dis­ap­pointed fol­low­ing the race; the 2008 cham­pion was at a loss to explain his inabil­ity to match his team-mate’s raw pace.

“It just wasn’t a good day… I really don’t know. I just strug­gled out there,” the Briton told Sky Sports F1 HD.

He added that the start, in which he ceded the lead to But­ton, “was the begin­ning of it all”.

The most heart­break­ing story of the evening was Williams’ Pas­tor Mal­don­ado. Hav­ing qual­i­fied a bril­liant eighth, the Venezue­lan was on course for sixth place, even caus­ing Ferrari’s Fer­nando Alonso headaches.

But at turn seven he los­t down­force on the kerb and career­ed vio­lently into the wall on the final lap.

Out of the car­nage, Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi, and Lotus’ Kimi Raikko­nen in his first race since 2009, took advan­tage to snatch sixth and sev­enth place respec­tively.

Kobayashi’s team-mate Ser­gio Perez fell to eighth after con­tact with Nico Rosberg.

Mean­while, Australia’s other hope Daniel Ric­cia­rdo seized ninth place on the final lap, cap­ping a great come­back drive after the Toro Rosso pilot lost his front-wing in a first cor­ner clash with Bruno Senna.

Force India’s Paul di Resta claimed the final point in tenth posi­tion, ahead of Toro Rosso debu­tant Jean-Eric Vergne.

Michael Schumacher’s promis­ing form came to a pre­ma­ture end after his Mer­cedes suf­fered gear­box fail­ure. While the Ger­man was run­ning in third place on lap eleven, team-mate Rosberg’s early pace slipped away before a final lap tan­gle with Perez rel­e­gated him to twelfth place.

Timo Glock was four­teenth and last, but cru­cially, the Marus­sia pilot’s posi­tion could be cru­cial towards the con­struc­tors’ stand­ings come the end of the season.

Else­where, Felipe Massa had a dog of a day, run­ning a lowly thir­teenth for the major­ity of the evening before a clumsy com­ing together with com­pa­triot Bruno Senna ended both of their races. The pres­sure is grow­ing on the Brazil­ian at a rapid rate.

Romain Gros­jean had an early shower after his Lotus was crunched by Mal­don­ado on the third lap. It was a disappointing end after qual­i­fy­ing so mag­nif­i­cently in third place.

The first race of sea­son 2012 has been run, the atmos­phere at Mel­bourne infec­tious. It was the largest crowd in recent years and they were treated to another spec­ta­cle of pure class.

But there’s lit­tle time for the teams and dri­vers to reflect, with round two this week­end at Malaysia.