Austalian GP: Race Winners + Losers

Sunday 16th March 2008

So, if you can have that much fun in the dry - what would it be like when it's wet - the World Rally Championship...?

Star of the Race
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 1st
Lewis Hamilton's dominance was perhaps one of the more boring features of the race. His opening sequence of laps was unlike anything I've seen at the start of a grand prix since I've been looking at timing screens since 2002. The sector times were an almost constant barrage of purple. He set Fastest Laps on Laps 3,5,6,7,9,11,13,14,15 and 17.

Had the run of second McLaren pit-stops gone the other way, with Hamilton pitting later instead of Kovalainen, then it would have been a travesty. As it was, Heikki got the rub of the green and had to battle it out with Alonso for 4th and 5th.

Lewis took yet aother astonishingly professional victory.

Overtaking Move Of The Race
Lap 57, Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren
Albert Park is not the easiest place to get past someone and Fernando Alonso, fighting for 4th place is certainly not going to make it any easier than he has to. Especially considering it is a McLaren coming through.

So Kovalainen's pass on him on the penultimate lap of the race was a really sharp move. The fact that he completely ruined it half a lap later doesn't take anything away from it - Heikki will probably not bang his pitlane rev limiter ever again in his GP career.

WINNERS
Max Mosley
FIA boss Max Mosley's attempts to get rid of traction control have been thoroughly vindicated by an enthralling first race without it. We had more action and incident going into Turn 1 than we usually have and more mistakes made over the course of the race.

In the heat of battle, making a move and relying on the technology to sort it all out is no longer an option, as both Ferrari drivers found out in the course of the race. That is one thing that all the testing in the world won't prepare you for.

TV Coverage
The host broadcaster in Melbourne should get the contract for the season. Though we lost sight of a few of the key incidents on the opening lap, there was just so much going off it was hardly surprising. What was interesting, was that the sound feed from the trackside cameras came through really crisply. So when Timo Glock turned his Toyota into a rallycross vehicle on Lap 45, the soundtrack of the accident made it far more dramatic. We also got sound from the roving pitlane cameras trained on celebs like Kelly Osbourne (not that that's a particular recommendation.)

The post-race scenes tracking in front of an exuberant Lewis Hamilton as he bounced up the steps to the podium and embraced Nico Rosberg captured the total exhilaration of the moment. The behind-the-scenes, behind-the-podium footage was exceptional.

Nick Heidfeld, BMW, 2nd
Starting from fifth place on the grid Nick Heidfeld probably thought he was in for one of his long, lonely afternoons of 2007, when he soldiered on alone, just shy of the podium places, to claim an undramatic fourth place.

The three Safety Cars helped keep him up with the leader and swift work from the lollypop guy at his first pit-stop put him back in front of Nico Rosberg. It was good that they didn't touch wheels, but on the balance of probabilities, we are going to get an in-pitlane accident at some stage this season.

Nico Rosberg, Williams-Toyota, 3rd
It's good to see Championship rivals get all friendly with each other after an intense battle because it reflects on that dwindling commodity in international sport - sportsmanship. Lewis Hamilton congratulating Nico Rosberg after the race was part of a human drama we rarely see these days. It was Rosberg's first podium and though Glock's Safety Car on Lap 45 was responsible for promoting him above Kovalainen, he had shown that he had the measure of Nick Heidfeld on the opening lap.

Rosberg's continuing good form is testament to why Williams were so anxious to retain him and why McLaren were so keen to get him in their car.

Fernando Alonso, Renault, 4th
Strange to think that this might be Alonso's best result for the first half of the season. Given the strength of BMW and their proximity to McLaren and Ferrari, plus the continuing pace of Williams, this is less likely to be the start of things to come and more likely to be the best a man can get.

Here was a World Champion who looked just as good without traction control as he did with it, but the fact that later in the race his Renault couldn't live with the pace of Sebastien Bourdais in a Toro Rosso must be worrying.

In his private moments he must wonder if he has done the right thing by moving back to Renault. He could have been alongside Lewis Hamilton on the front row of the grid in a McLaren. He might have been on pole. There is no way he is going to become World Champion in 2008 and it's all his own making.

Though the smile of a man who has just overtaken a McLaren on the final lap of a race was one of great contentment, it can surely not make up for a season on the sidelines, no matter how much he wants to spin the line that he's back with "his family".

Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Ross, 7th
Bourdais trundled along happily and collected two points while he was walking back to the Toro Rosso garage. It may have been cruel luck to have lost 4th place when he was just three laps from the finish (and keeping Alonso at bay), but he was very lucky to be there in the first place.

Two points (and 7th place) on his debut is better than Vettel (one point and 8th place last year), but still not up with Jenson Button who took 6th for Williams in 2000.

ITV Coverage
The ITV coverage was excellent from the word go. It's always with some relief that we see Mark Blundell back in the pitlane, as his conjugation of the English language is always a joy to behold. And it's an even bigger reflief that Brundle has been given an FIA pass despite the earlier legal action against him for comments he made last season.

This season they've also got Tamara Ecclestone performing the kind of role formerly occupied by Beverly Turner - the Totty With The Microphone slot. Last year Radio 5 tried that with Holly Samos, but to no great effect, it being radio and her surname not being Ecclestone.

ITV's stroke of genius is that team personnel and drivers have GOT to be nice and take Tamara's eyelash-batting "oh gosh, really?" questions seriously because she's Bernie's daughter. She even got smiles out of Kimi Raikkonen.

Honda, DNF & DSQ
Never mind the fact that Rubens Barrichello got disqualified, Honda showed enough form this weekend to make them believe again. "I am in love with the team, I am in love with the progess we have made," he said after qualifying on Saturday (a quote very similar to one that Michael used to give).

He may have held Raikkonen up for 19 laps, but he didn't collect a train of cars behind him indicating that he had qualified above his race pace. Things are looking good for Pete Gill's favourite driver.

Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso, DNF

Giancarlo Fisichella, Force-India
They may have gone out on the opening lap, but they eclipsed their team-mates in qualifying.

LOSERS
F1 Car Fragility
Something has happened to F1 cars this season. Touch them and they fall apart like the clown's comedy car at the circus. First off we had the Super Aguri of AnthonyDavidson tag the back of Nakajima and the suspension decide that was enough for the afternoon.

Vettel and Button had what looked like an innocuous tag on the opening lap and they were both out. Mark Webber, too. Then Massa gave DC a playful shove in the sidepod and the Red Bull fell apart as it crossed the kerbs. Then towards the end Glock launched his Toyota at the exit f Turn 12 and all of a sudden it was raining Toyota.

Robert Kubica's BMW also didn't survive a small nerf in the back from Nakajima at the end. Hardly surpising then, that we only had a handful of cars running at the end. It's very rare to get a race where there are so many retirements from contact.

Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 8th
Kimi Raikkonen had a monumental opening lap. He had a lot of luck, but fortune favours the brave and he was very brave. Had Vettel washed out wide at Turn 1 instead of turning inside on Jenson Button, then his race could have been over on the opening lap. Kimi's pass of Coulthard, though, was muscular and fair.

After that he almost tripped himself up on Barrichello and it was handy that Rubens gave him a car park worth of space at Turn 3 on Lap 19.

From there it was all downhill with places gained by attrition and then two terrible driver errors. The first, when he missed his braking point going up the inside of Kovalainen and almost ending his race in the gravel, and then sticking two wheels on the grass as he tried to pass Timo Glock.

At least Kimi knows where to spin his car without getting into trouble, it was the same last year at the Japanese GP when he stormed through from the back using every bit of tarmac they'd laid down.

Ultimately it all counted for nought as his engine gave up, and with the power demands of Malaysia, that was probably no bad thing.

Felipe Massa, Ferrari,DNF
Felipe Massa came out of the opening lap of the Australian GP looking like a bit of a bungler, but he actually spun his car in Turn 1 desperately trying to be fair and avoiding a collision with Heikki Kovalainen. From then on, his chug back through the field was marked by less care and more abandon, culminating in the impact with Coulthard's Red Bull.

For a team that said reliability was going to be the key to success in 2008 a failure to finish both cars must be worrying for new Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali. It would be interesting to listen in to the phone call from Jean Todt.

Robert Kubica, BMW, DNF
Kubica looked as if he had the pace of Lewis Hamilton in qualifying on Saturday and might have been on pole had he not put four wheels on the grass at Turn 12. When it came to racing the BMW, it was no match for the McLaren and on some laps Hamilton was pulling out gaps of 0.7 and 0.8.

When they pitted, Kubica was in just two laps earlier than Hamilton, which means the fuel loads must have been comparable. That's assuming Lewis didn't pit earlier than he had to for tactical reasons,

Altogether a lot of promise that was unfulfilled and his GP was ended by a shove up the arse from Nakajima. Now he knows how Mark Webber feels.

Filthy Coulthard, Red Bull, DNF
Either Mark Webber disappeared before Louise Goodman could get hold of him, or the ITV crew thought better of asking his opinion about his first lap exit from his home race. Probably the latter.

The second grumpy old man of the Red Bull team made up for it by saying he was going to "kick three colours (he meant shades) of sh*t out of the little bastard." The bastard in question being Felipe Massa who'd challenged in an exuberant but not wholly reckless fashion.

If this is the quality of comment from a prominent member of the Grand Prix Driver's Association, then you can see why they're struggling to recruit new members. The fact is that the stewards chose not to investigate it and so it must have been a racing incident. Making a knob of yourself by swearing on national television when you're DC's age doesn't look big or clever. You can maybe understand England rugby star Danny Cipriani doing it at 20 years old (on Saturday) but not the oldest driver on the grid.

Kazuki Nakajima, Williams Toyoa, 6th
Kazuki Nakajima's vow to keep the Williams front wing fabrication team on overtime for the whole of the 2008 season got off to a great start in Melbourne. Boy can that lad get through them. A chip off the old block.

Murray Walker once offered his dad, Satoru Nakajima, a paper bag to stick over his onboard camera at the end of a season, because of all the shunts and incidents it had witnessed - engineered by Nakajima-san.

Kazuki may be ringing his dad up to see if he's still got it.

Nelson Piquet Junior, Renault, DNF
If you have the chance to see the Australian GP again, take a good look at the line Nelson Piquet Junior takes into the first corner. It's way up the inside, the kind of sneaky line that GP drivers adopt if it's a slow corner that doubles back on itself, such as the Nurburgring, Sepang, Hungary or China.

Melbourne is more akin to Barcelona, a fast turn where that kind of move is always going to end up in contact with somebody. As it was, the driver he squeezed moved across on an innocent Giancarlo Fisichella who was launched into the air and drew the "kamikaze" quote from Fisi. And rightly so.

Nelson sailed through the chaos unharmed but in no danger of joining the fray. On Lap 6 he was putting in laps that were six seconds off the leader's pace.

After his single pit-stop he burnt out the clutch. There will be no-one more pleased than Fernando Alonso who knows that he will not be challenged at Renault this season.

Timo Glock, Toyota, DNF
Timo qualified exceptionally well on Saturday, but on an afternoon when he could have grabbed two or three points, he gave the Toyota mechanics a massive rebuild for next week's race.

Mark Get off me Barra Blundell
It was a slow start to the season with a fairly measured Blundell keen to keep it tight. It was clear he didn't want to unleash the kind of sentence that we've grown to know and love over the years. The kind that starts off and then transmutes into something else and then wanders unsuspectingly into a cliché and then forgets where it started and rounds off suddenly, Steve.

But talking to Jenson on Saturday we did get:
"You done a lot of progress from winter testing, Jenson, but where's the next step coming from?"

And on Sunday, talking about first lap incidents:
"You're going to see more and more of this as we go into the season because there's a lot more at issue going into Turn 1."

Not classic Blundell, but like Toyota, the prospects of results to come.

Andrew Davies

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