We are back for to give you all the latest news and information for every F1 race in 2013. As usual we will be concentrating on the technical and strategy stories.
Australia
The first race weekend of 2013 saw drama as the
qualification period had to be stopped due to heavy rain on Saturday. The final
qualifying sessions were held on race morning which could have helped the teams
to get more of a feel for the track as there would be less time between Quali
and the race.
The final qualifying session was in drying conditions and
Mclaren took a gamble on slicks which did not way off relegating them down the
grid. Red Bull’s Vettel got the timing right followed by Team-mate Webber and
Hamilton in a creditable 4th in his first outing with Mercedes.
Hamilton was followed by Massa out qualifying Alonso 6th was Rosberg
and 7th Raikkonen.
By the time the race was started it was damp but ran full
distance as a dry race. Force India made the most of their qualifying position
to start on fresh rubber and went for a two stop strategy which saw Sutil
leading after the first set of stops. Mclaren’s race was over in qualifying with
their tyres failing early on. Ferrari came out fighting and seemed to be the
ones to watch as red bull seemed to be struggling. But from what seemed nowhere
Kimi Raikkonen having driven a calm and calculated race won the race with
Alonso second with Vettel.
This race was all about the new tyres for 2013 which were
designed with a differing level of degradation for this year. Lotus and Ferrari
did seem to get more out of the tyres than Red Bull. Vettel looked frustrated
on the podium as his qualifying pace was not matched in the race. Three World
Champions on the podium and one more (Hamilton) in fifth looking as if the move
to Mercedes was not such a bad idea after all as Mclaren’s Button and Perez
finished ninth and eleventh.
With just a week to go until the next race there will be a
full technical round up before we head off to the Malaysian GP on 14 March.
