If you TiVo'd today's F1 season opener from Melbourne, Australia, don't read any further or it will spoil the race for you. But not to worry, you'd be in good company as the race was spoiled for just about everyone else, too. Everyone except for Mercedes, whose star driver Lewis Hamilton claimed a flawless victory, his new team-mate Heikki Kovalainen narrowly escaping the completion of a one-two finish for McLaren, while spectators at Albert Park saw little else other than the new Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG safety car.
While the McLaren drivers escaped unscathed, the rest of the race was packed with more early retirements than a plant closure. Out of the 22 cars that started the race, only seven finished. At the first corner of the first lap, Jenson Button (Honda), Giancarlo Fisichella (Force India), Mark Webber (Red Bull), Anthony Davidson (Super Aguri) and Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) all collided in a spectacular six-car pile-up, forcing each of the drivers to retire one after the other. Ferrari's duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa also retired early after mounting difficult campaigns, with Kimi finally being awarded a point as Honda's Rubens Barrichello was disqualified for a pit-lane mishap. BMW's Nick Heidfeld had a strong race, finishing second behind Hamilton, while Williams' Nico Rosberg claimed his first podium in third place. Perhaps most impressive, however, was Sebastien Bourdais. The four-time Champ Car champion and newcomer to F1 was set to cross the finish line behind the wheel of the Toro Rosso in fourth place on a brilliantly-timed one-stop strategy, only to retire when his Ferrari engine failed three laps before the end. With no one else completing the race behind him, the Frenchman finished his first race in the points, behind Williams' Kazuki Nakajima (the last to actually finish the race) and Raikkonen.
Follow the link for more details on the 2008 Australian Grand Prix, and stay tuned next week as the F1 circus moves on to Malaysia.
[Source: Autosport]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mehul @ Mar 17th 2008 10:27AM
What happened to Alonso this weekend?? He was not even on the podium nor did he have a decent qualifying...
Mr. Oak @ Mar 17th 2008 12:24PM
Alonso needs a car. I guess being the team's #1 designated driver was more important that being in a good car.
Logik @ Mar 17th 2008 9:17PM
Alonso had a problem with his differential control unit (or something like that) in Q2 qualifying. It seems like the problem arose towards the end of the race, when he was trying defending his position from KOV.
Aug @ Mar 17th 2008 10:28AM
Kimi did REALLY well, he was incredibly impressive. He started in
15th, he navigated his way flawlessly around and through the wreck at
the beginning and hauled all the way up to 7th or 8th, then he ended
up scooting all the way to 3rd, then, right when he nabbed 2nd he had
his trouble.
I can't wait to see Raikkonen vs. Hamilton this season. :)
I was a little disappointed though, Massa seemed to lose control all on his own. (It looked like it was due to a wreck that happened near him, but they showed it slowed down and he just drove off a few seconds before the wreck beside him).
a @ Mar 17th 2008 10:59AM
I don't understand how you can call Kimi impressive. He made two rookie mistakes. One of the worst drivers of the race IMO.
gabibiza @ Mar 17th 2008 11:24AM
he never went to second! he was behind Glock and spun then bk on the tail of the trio led by bourdais and broke his engine..he was nerver 2nd! watch the race properly next time!
BPeredo @ Mar 17th 2008 11:32AM
He attempted a pass at Heiki for P2 and was ahead of him for about a second before going off. So yes, he was P2 at one point. ;)
Eric @ Mar 17th 2008 10:28AM
Interesting start to the season for sure. Wheres the Ferrari's?? Haha..
judd @ Mar 17th 2008 10:47AM
All you had to do was keep the car ging until the checker and you would have scored points in that race. Mayhem and carnage. I thought I was watching NASCAR. Great show. Too bad for Bourdais. He had points in the bag for sure. Good thing there will be more room in Malaysia to go off. It should be more interesting.
Fast evo 8 @ Mar 17th 2008 12:04PM
let see, he started P15 passed 8 cars in 1 lap, held a solid 3rd place (for a total of 12 cars passed). where he made 1 mistake by passing for 2nd place and going off on dead tires (soft compound tires with 30 laps on them...). from there his engine had troubles how is that one of the worst drivers of the day? no one but bourdias made anywhere close to as many passes for position.
how about nakajima who rear ended kubica under a safety car? thats a rookie mistake... or how about kovalainen who "accidentally" hit his "pit rev limiter" with one lap to go letting alonso pass his on the front straight....
obviously half the people posting here didn't even watch all of the race
Phil Perman @ Mar 17th 2008 11:00AM
I think Timo Glock had the best crash of the race. Ran wide at a corner, bounced off a small bank of grass at the edge of a service road, got about a meter of air and wrecked his car without actually hitting anything
For anyone who wants to see it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH9Hv_VAd6k
Ian @ Mar 17th 2008 11:25AM
Best drive of the race: Sebastian Bourdais in one of the dog chassis of 2007 drove the pants off his machine to run away from a Renault And a McLaren and be in solid 4th until his powertrain let him down.
What happened to Alonso? Well his car looked almost undriveable and he seemed to be working 120% just to stay on the track.
ShaunL @ Mar 17th 2008 11:31AM
Get it right... Weber and Davidson collided in the third corner. Although the first corner was particularly messy.
why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 17th 2008 11:35AM
I watched Sebring back to back with this race. Sebring went 3.5 hours with no safety car (almost 3x the length of an F1 race) and produced a lot of exciting lead changes and some might say an unexpected winner.
F1? It had a lot of wrecks.
I congratulate F1 on getting rid of traction control. Other than that, well, their product still needs some fine tuning. The announcers mentioned the Australian race lost $20M+ last year and the year before. It's no wonder to me.
I also am very surprised F1 has not taken a cue from NASCAR and emphasized their drivers more. Speed showed short clips from all the junior/rookie drivers, but they still are lucky to get any kind of interview from any serious contender. In ALMS, most drivers are interviewed before and during the race.
I also again am disappointed in F1's safety emphasis. People laud them all the time for their safety (mostly during wrecks) and I don't agree they deserve it. In (now departed) Champ Car, if you injure any member of your crew, you are disqualified, end of story. It's the only way to keep teams from cutting corners in the pits and taking risks with their team members' health in order to get out of the box faster. We saw at least one pit crew member injured with no penalty. We saw a driver drive over an air hose with no penalty. We (apparently) saw a driver exit the pits against a red light with no penalty.
Also I can't see how a car can score points if doesn't finish the race (sorry Sebastien).
Maybe I have rose-colored glasses, but it seems to me like F1 in many ways is coasting on their name.
BPeredo @ Mar 17th 2008 1:28PM
Rubens Barrichello did receive a penalty for exiting pitlane on a red light. He was excluded from the race as a result. F1 has been consistent with this rule, as Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa received the same penalty in Canada last year and Juan Pablo Montoya the year before.
Luis @ Mar 17th 2008 2:11PM
Apples and oranges. You're comparing totally different animals. One is an endurance race, and the pit stops take minutes in one, seconds in the other. I really don't think F1 cuts any corners (or any series for that matter), more so in safety than anything else. And also, in the pre-show there was a statement made that F1 Is indeed going to make attempts to focus more on drivers in the future.
Geoffrey Sneddon @ Mar 17th 2008 2:21PM
Re: interviews: that's down to each broadcaster. The ones that get the biggest numbers of views tend to get the biggest drivers, leaving smaller ones (like Speed) with smaller drivers.
Re: safety: who do you want to blame for Barrichello pulling away too soon? Barrichello? That makes no sense. He left when the lollipop went up. The chief mechanic made the mistake, and what realistically can the FIA do? Ban the entire team?
Re: Barrichello: he was disqualified after the race.
why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 17th 2008 2:49PM
What? It's not about blame.
Yes, the car should be excluded. It is excluded if the chief mechanic decides to increase the rev limiter pass the legal limit. It is excluded if the chief mechanic decides to lower the car below the minimum clearance. It is excluded if the chief mechanic decides to take out more weight than is legal. It shouldn't be excluded if the chief mechanic fouls up in a way that injures a crew member?
And no, I'm not comparing endurance racing to F1, I'm comparing Champ Car to F1. If I were comparing it to ALMS, I'd talk about fueling while changing tires. In Champ Car (now IRL?) you can't run over a hose. you can't run over your team members. the penalty for such safety issues is the same as it is for a driver not wearing the HANS device. Exclusion. If you let teams cut corners on safety to get ahead, they will.
Mobius_1 @ Mar 17th 2008 11:45AM
That was the craziest race I've seen for a while, what, only 7 cars actually drove until the very end? (and Barrichello got DQ'd, too)
But it is somewhat more entertaining if you prefer crashes to driving loops
Mr. Oak @ Mar 17th 2008 12:33PM
Fast Evo:
Whenever a front row car starts at the back of the grid, they tend to get by the back markers quite easily. This was nothing extra-ordinary. Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso and Rubens B. are the most recent ones I seen do this. It was expected of him.
That Kimi got stuck behind Rubens for an eternity really frustrated him, he pounced on Timo and ended throwing the car off the track.
The car breaking was the kindest thing that could have happened to him.