Following Sebastian Vettel’s victory for Ferrari in the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, the opening round of the 2017 Formula One season, here are some of the talking points from the Melbourne race.
Ferrari the real deal
The time sheets in pre-season testing speed were not a false dawn. Ferrari, through Sebastian Vettel at least, were the fastest package in Melbourne on race day. Kinder to the Pirelli tyres and a match for Mercedes-GP on raw pace, Vettel was a deserved winner. Lewis Hamilton may have been held up by Max Verstappen’s Red Bull Racing car after his pit stop, but he had no answer to Vettel in clear air after the pit stops. Vettel and Ferrari are the real deal and we have a real championship fight on our hands.
Below-par Raikkonen
If this was a great day for Vettel it was one to forget for Kimi Raikkonen. The driver of the second Ferrari was well off the German’s pace and was never a factor at the front, finishing 22 seconds behind his teammate in fourth place. If this is going to be Ferrari v Mercedes this year the Italian team need much more from the 2007 world champion.
Verstappen does as much as expected
Fifth place was not what Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing would have had in mind for the opening race, but the Austrian team are clearly no match for Mercedes and Ferrari at present. So best of the rest is their goal for now, and Verstappen did all that could be asked of him. He qualified fifth, ran there for most of the race, pushed Raikkonen’s Ferrari hard and stayed ahead of Hamilton during the pit stops despite being on older rubber. It was not a spectacular result, but the Dutch teenager did all he could and he will be a factor again when the car beneath him improves.
Haas have reliability issues
It was a mixed day for the Haas team. They are undoubtedly quick, at least with Romain Grosjean behind the wheel, as he qualified sixth and was running seventh in the race, but reliability, the weakness of the American team in their debut year last season, again reared its ugly head. Both he and teammate Kevin Magnussen were forced out of the race with mechanical problems, and given how close the midfield fight looks, having good speed is no use if they are not able to bring the car home.
Overtaking concerns
One race is too early to make any real assessment, but the lack of overtaking at Albert Park was concerning. The track is not one of the easiest to pass in F1 anyhow, but it was noticeable that several drivers, despite being on much newer tyres than cars ahead of them, were unable to stay close enough out of corners to make their extra grip count. Hamilton had warned the new aerodymanic regulations would make passing harder in 2017, but hopefully this was a one-off, and the next race in China on April 9 will give us a better spectacle in terms of wheel-to-wheel racing.
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