After a long winter it as time for the Formula One drivers and teams to return to action at the Albert Park Circuit for the 2017 FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX. Pre-season testing revealed very little about the pace of the teams and offered no insight into what team would have the advantage heading into the 2017 Formula One season.
The first session of the weekend was relatively routine, with Mercedes topped the time sheets. However, the true performance gap between Mercedes and the closest competitors was not revealed during the first free practice session since the Silver Arrows were the only cars that ran the faster ultrasoft tyre compound. Much of the session was treated much like a pre-season test, with most of the teams using the time to perform some more system checks and installation laps. The session was not without hiccups, as Max Verstappen suffered a gearbox issues, Esteban Ocon was impacted by brake issues and Jolyon Palmer battled Renault reliability issues. McLaren also had further mechanical issues, but made up for some of their limited running in Barcelona by running some aerodynamic sensors.
The second practice session on Friday showed the difficulty of the new cars, with many drivers having scary moments. Verstappen ran wide through the grass, but came out undamaged. Palmer crashed in the final corner shortly into the start of the session, bringing out the red flags after hitting the barriers. Marcus Ericsson also ended his session slightly early, skidding off of the track and into a gravel track in the closing stages of the session. This session was also filled with mechanical issues Felipe Massa and Kevin Magnussen. Mercedes ended the day on top again, with Lewis Hamilton leading the way, but with some serious competition from Ferrari growing.
Saturday started with a new face in the paddock, as Antonio Giovinazzi was called in to replace Pascal Wehrlein for the remainder of the weekend. Ferrari was able to take the lead of the session, beating Mercedes while Red Bull struggled to find performance. Sebastian Vettel took the session lead early on, as Valtteri Bottas narrowly outperformed his new teammate. Nico Hülkenberg was able to complete the top five for the session, nearly a second behind Kimi Räikkönen. The session was ended early after Canadian rookie Lance Stroll crashed into the barriers near the end of the session. The final practice was red flagged and did not resume. Stroll required a gearbox change.
Qualifying saw the tense battle between Ferrari and Mercedes for the pole position. The session was not issue free. Antonio Giovinazzi missed out on his Q2 chance, running wide in the final corner on his flying lap. Kevin Magnussen also ran wide to ruin his lap. McLaren again suffered reliability issues, with Stoffel Vandoorne losing a lot of time in the garage. Palmer also struggled to find performance in his Renault car. With eight minutes remaining in the final qualifying session, Daniel Ricciardo crashed into the barriers in front of his home crowd, having failed to set a lap time in the session. The incident brought out the red flag. By the end of the session, Hamilton had secured the pole position with the fastest lap ever recorded on the circuit. Vettel narrowly beat Mercedes rival Bottas. Räikkönen, Verstappen Grosjean and Massa all qualified with roughly half of a second between each other.
What has been a terrible weekend for Ricciardo came to a premature end when the car got stuck in sixth gear due to an electronic sensor issue before the start of the race during the out lap. Unfortunately for the team and fans, the mechanical issues were terminal and prevented Ricciardo from starting the race. There was also some brief concern for Daniil Kvyat on the grid, when his fire extinguisher deployed. The issue was resolved and the car was able to start the race. The race start was aborted, sending the cars on an extra formation lap. At the start, Hamilton got a clean start and pulled into an early lead with Vettel closing in on the Mercedes driver and creating a gap with Bottas. A few cars ran wide in the first corner, but it was a fairly clean corner. Later in the first lap, Kevin Magnussen collided with the Sauber of Ericsson on the first lap after hitting the kerb. Sergio Pérez made a great overtaking maneuver on Kvyat, diving to the inside. Ricciardo was released from the garage two laps down on the leader, with the team having rectified the previous issue. Ten laps into the race, Vandoorne had some reliability concerns and a lack of power. When the McLaren driver pitted, he power cycled the power unit, causing a long pit stop for the team. Romain Grosjean parked his car in the pit lane with a smoking engine around lap 15, ending his race. With brake issues plaguing the car, Palmer also retired for the race.
Despite complaining about a lack of grip, Hamilton was able to slowly grow the gap between himself and Vettel, although not to the extent that we saw in 2016 and Vettel was fully capable of applying the pressure to Mercedes. The pair swapped fastest laps for many laps. Approaching a backmarker, Hamilton became the first of the leading cars to pit, opting to take the soft compound tyres. In the clean air, Hamilton was faster than the leading Ferrari, but he soon caught up to Verstappen, slowing his lap times. Rapidly approaching the rear of Lance Stroll, Ferrari called Vettel into the pits. With Hamilton stuck behind Verstappen, Vettel was able to get out of the pits narrowly in front of Verstappen and Hamilton. While the chase in the front was underway, the efforts to get Ricciardo into the race were undone when the car’s engine failed at the halfway point of the race. The car was stopped in a safe position, preventing a safety car from impacting the battle at the front, with about six seconds separating Hamilton from Vettel. With the gap rapidly increasing in front, a new threat emerged for Hamilton’s side of the garage: Valtteri Bottas. Mercedes’ newest recruit was quickly closing on his teammate’s gearbox. However, traffic and limited laps prevented Bottas from providing a close challenge to his teammate. Meanwhile, Ferrari took the first victory of the season with more than a ten second lead.
Will a Ferrari victory be the start of a major power shift in Formula One or can Mercedes fight back and return to their previous form? With the first round of the championship now completed, the teams will travel to Shanghai in two weeks’ time to take part in the 2017 FORMULA 1 HEINEKEN CHINESE GRAND PRIX on the weekend of April 9.
