Rosberg, who has seen his Mercedes team-mate win successive championships, started his campaign in the best-possible fashion with victory in Melbourne.
Advertisement
Champion Lewis Hamilton had to play second fiddle to teammate Nico Rosberg, however, the German finishing more than eight seconds ahead of his all-conquering teammate who elected not to challenge near the end of the race.
The Ferrari driver was leading Nico Rosberg when??a crash involving Fernando Alonso on lap 19 saw the race red flagged, but the team made a decision to pursue with the super soft tyres??as Mercedes switched Rosberg to new??mediums. The McLaren driver has flew over the back of Haas’ Esteban Gutierrez and slammed into a barrier, but both drivers were unhurt.
Two-time world champion Alonso walked away unharmed from a horrifying crash that wrecked his McLaren at the Australian Grand Prix.
Vettel and teammate Kimi Raikkonen took the lead at the start after pole-sitter Hamilton had his worst start in years and lost four places.
Vettel launched a lone attack, but fell just short of catching Hamilton’s auto, and a hard-charging Ricciardo took fourth place, well ahead of Felipe Massa in a Williams.
Hamilton said: “It was a great race I loved the fact we had to come from far behind”.
Hamilton climbed back to third place, eventually passing Daniel Ricciardo and then held on to second to grab a podium spot.
During the break, Mercedes opted to run both their cars on medium compound tires and rode them to the finish.
The good relations continued in the post-race media conference with Rosberg offering an apology for the start that set the Briton back.
The stoppage wiped away the Ferrari pair’s advantage – and planned tyre strategy – with the entire field able to change to fresh rubber before restarting behind the safety vehicle with 18 laps of the 57 gone.
Raikkonen retired from the race with an engine problem and his Ferrari had flames coming out of the air box of his vehicle when he came into the pits. “It is going to be good and I am going to try and come out on top”.
Advertisement
“The choice of tyres, I mean, at that stage of the race you have to be more aggressive”, he added. We were looking at the race and looking at the gap we were gaining and at that time our radio was to go with our strategy and keep going.
