Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel on Sunday won the Australian Grand Prix, the first event of the 2018 season, ahead of Mercede’s Lewis Hamilton, who took the lead at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne.
This is the 48th success of Vettel’s career, which had already won in Australia last season ahead of his closest rival Hamilton. Kimi Raikkonen, meanwhile, took third place.
Taking advantage of a few laps under virtual safety car following the double abandonment of the Haas in the space of two rounds, which has slowed Hamilton, already passed to the wells, the quadruple German world champion has also refueled and took the lead of the race, on the 26th lap.
Mercedes apparently made a mistake when calculating the minimum speed under yellow flag, which benefitted Vettel, emerged just in front of his rival.
The race then resumed a distance duel between the two men, long separated by less than a second, but Hamilton has never managed to get close enough to try to double his dolphin last season.
Hamilton admitted that his rival has done good job in the first round of the 2018 F1 racing. The defending world champion was shocked when Vettel was in the pits.
“Today they did a better job. We’ve to go back to the drawing board and work on it. But we still have great pace. This is an awesome circuit, but it’s so hard to overtake.” Hamilton said.
Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen celebrate on the podium after racing. (Source:www.scroll.in)
After the race, Vettel said: “We got a bit lucky with timing of the safety car. If you are at the front you can control the race, we know overtaking is difficult. Lewis was probably the quickest of the three of us but that’s the way it goes.”
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, he took fourth place ahead of McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, who very excited with new Renault engine Alonso, meanwhile, Dutchman Max Verstappen could mange only sixth place after an uncharacteristic spin.
Williams’ Lance Stroll finished at 14th place this first Grand Prix of the 2018 season. Positioned 13th on the grid, he was quickly outpaced by Esteban Ocon in the early laps and even briefly dropped to 15th. He passed thirteenth when Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen had to give up, but once again fell one place.
