Vettel wins Opening F1 Race

In the F1 seasons' opening race in Australia this weekend all eyes were on Vettel to continue his championship winning form and the young German did not disappoint.

After securing pole position in qualifying Vettel never looked anything but in control of his leading position. Except for a brief period, when Vettel had pitted, he lead the entire race - finishing with a 22.2 seconds gap over 2nd position Lewis Hamilton, who drove for a good chunk of the race with the bottom of his car scraping along the tarmac.

There were a few shocks in the race, with some impressive driving from newcomers Paul di Resta (Force India) and Sergio Perez (Sauber).

Perez managed to complete the entire race with only 1 stop for tyres, impressing his peers and Pirelli bosses alike. He managed to finish 7th in the race but was later disqualified on a technicality due to a rear wing infringement. This allowed di Resta to score a point after his 11th position finish was subsequently upgraded to 10th.

Another surprise was a 3rd place finish for Renault's Vitaly Petrov, his first podium, making him the first Russian to have a podium finish.

The other big names had more disappointing races; Jenson Button's hopes of scoring high points were squandered after he was served a drive-through penalty for leaving the track, in a frustrated effort to overtake Fernando Alonso early in the race, however for his efforts he still managed to finish in 6th place.

The results leave Red Bull Racing back on top of the constructors championship, followed by McLaren then Ferrari. Some drivers and constructors will have to find more pace for the next race in 2 weeks time if they are to challenge the Vettel/Red Bull combination.

27-Mar-2011
« Back to articles