Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing completes his dominance in Australia – Formula 1 news
Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel could not have had a better start to the 2011 Formula 1 season as he completely dominated the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.
He started from the pole and went onto win the race without having any issues. His teammate Mark Webber was not able to express the true pace of his car, as the Australian finished fifth in the race.
The defending champion had a clean first lap, which allowed him to take a 2.4-second lead over McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton. Vettel took full advantage of the good start and kept on increasing his pace. However, things became somewhat difficult for the young
German when the Pirelli tyres started to wear out.
Hamilton managed his tyres better than some of the other drivers, which allowed him to close the gap on Vettel, who started to struggle a bit with the grip. However, things changed once the reigning champion made his pit stop. He got quicker and quicker
with time and did not allow Hamilton to catch him until the end of the race. Both drivers finished one and two in the race respectively.
There was a stiff competition between Renault driver Vitaly Petrov, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Mark Webber for the third place. However, Petrov won that battle in the end, claiming his first podium finish in Formula 1.
The Russian driver was behind Alonso and Webber at one stage, but the pit stop strategy favoured Petrov, who stopped twice compared to three stops by both his rivals.
Jenson Button and Felipe Massa had a mixed race, but they managed to finish in points with a sixth and seventh place finish. Button was stuck behind the scarlet car for the initial part of the race, but the McLaren driver eventually managed to get ahead
of him.
Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi finished eighth ahead of both Force-India drivers Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta, who completed the top ten.
Both Sauber drivers Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi ended the race at seventh and eighth places initially. However, they were penalised by the race stewards for technical infringements in their rear wings. The team has challenged the verdict, as they feel
they did everything according to the law.
The biggest disappointment of the race was for both Mercedes GP drivers Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg. They had a lot of technical issues during the race weekend at Melbourne, which earned them a poor position in the qualifiers. Adding insult to injury,
the German drivers had to retire from the race following damage to their cars due to accidents.
All teams will now head to Malaysia for the second race of the season, which will take place on Sunday, 10 April, 2011.
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