The 2018 Formula One season started with a bang, providing some entertaining battles and showing that the 2018 season could have lots of close competition from many teams. At the end of the day, Sebastian Vettel started the season on a high note with a solid victory in front of the Australian crowd.
The race start was clean for all the drivers. Lewis Hamilton got a solid start, managing to maintain his leading position into the first corner. Kimi Räikkönen attempted to overtake the leading Mercedes on the outside of turn three but was unable to do so. Max Verstappen fancied a look up the inside of the Ferrari into the first corner but decided against a dive. Unfortunately for Red Bull, this allowed Kevin Magnussen to sneak past on the outside.
With a Haas now in front of Verstappen, Red Bull’s race strategy was at risk. The mission Verstappen was simply to get past the Haas driver, but that would be difficult. Even after the DRS was enabled in the race, Verstappen was unable to get close enough to the Haas. Verstappen was on the edge, getting the car out of shape in many corners. The tyres on the car were overheating, but it all went wrong at the start of the tenth lap when he lost the rear of the car going into the first corner. He was able to continue the race but lost a lot of positions.
Meanwhile, Sergey Sirotkin was not as lucky in his first Formula One race of his career, parking his Williams in a runoff area due to brake issues. Marcus Ericsson was also unlucky, parking into the garage shortly after with a power steering failure. Pierre Gasly also fell victim to a mechanical failure when smoke began pouring from the rear of his car after just 15 laps.
Looking back at the top of the leaderboard, Hamilton managed to pull out a comfortable lead, but neither Räikkönen or Sebastian Vettel were letting him get away. With the pit window for the one-stop pit strategy, Hamilton began to push out front to increase the gap to the cars behind. But Ferrari were the first to make the move, calling Räikkönen in for a tyre change just shy of lap 20 to put on the soft tyres. Hamilton was next, coming in for fresh rubber the following lap and coming out comfortably in front of Räikkönen.
While Vettel remained in front, Haas called Magnussen into the pitlane for new tyres. However, an issue tightening the left-rear wheel nut caused a premature end to his race. Two laps later, Romain Grosjean pitted for tyres as well. However, he suffered a similar fate with the front left tyre, ending what could have been one of the team’s strongest weekends. Because of the parked Haas, the virtual safety car was deployed.
This triggered a round of pit stops for the remaining drivers who had not already done so. This included Vettel. The virtual safety car played well into the hands of Ferrari, with Vettel managing to come out of the pits narrowly in front of Hamilton, activating a great battle to the end of the grand prix. To add more drama to the battle, the FIA decided to deploy the safety car to allow a mobile crane to enter the circuit to dispose of the stricken Haas car.
When the race resumed, Vettel was successful in controlling the pace of the cars on the restart, preventing Hamilton from getting too close to the Ferrari of Vettel. The chase began, but the Mercedes is not very good in the turbulent air when following other cars, making it difficult for Hamilton to stay close to Vettel, but it by no means signaled the end of the battle.
After hanging back outside of the DRS zone for many laps, Hamilton made the decision to begin pushing with just ten laps remaining in the race. However, he pushed a bit too hard into turn nine, running wide into the grass and losing a lot of time. Fortunately for Hamilton, the strong pace from the Mercedes and the backmarker car of Brendon Hartley allowed Hamilton to make up the time lost from his previous mistake.
However, he was unable to launch another attack against Vettel, meaning that Ferrari would take the lead of both championships. Räikkönen held off Daniel Ricciardo in an entertaining battle, earning a solid podium position. Fernando Alonso concluded the top five for the first time in a long time, coping with pressure put on by Verstappen.
Above results table does not include any post-race penalties
