After a long winter, the Formula One teams returned to action for the FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2019 in Melbourne. Valtteri Bottas started the season strong with a victory, while his teammate struggled for grip and Ricciardo suffered a first lap incident in front of his home crowd.
As the lights went out for the first time in 2019, Valtteri Bottas got a brilliant start, overtaking his teammate on the run down to the first corner. Having started on pole position, Lewis Hamilton was able to preserve P2 from the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.
Further back on the grid, Daniel Ricciardo had a commanding start. He moved to the inside of the slower Sergio Perez down the straight. Ahead, Nico Hulkenberg moved to the middle to overtake the car ahead, forcing Perez to adjust his line. This forced Ricciardo to move onto the grass slightly, shattering the front wing of his Renault.
Ricciardo limped back to the pits for a new front wing and a new set of tyres, as did Robert Kubica, who lost his front wing in a collision with Pierre Gasly in the opening sector.
Carlos Sainz was the first retirement of the race, with the Renault engine at the rear of his McLaren going up in flames after just 10 laps. He was able to park up at the pit entrance and get his car extinguished.
Looking at the lead of the race, the drivers all spread out to about a 3 to 4 second gap between each car, staying outside of the dirty air. Kimi Raikkonen was the first car to make a pit stop in the pit window, triggering a steady flow of stops from the others.
Vettel was the first of the leaders to pit for tyres, changing to the hard compound on lap 15. Mercedes opted to pit their driver in P2 rather than Bottas in the lead, responding to Ferrari’s stop by putting Hamilton on the medium compound. Hamilton’s out-lap was substantially slower than Vettel’s allowing the German to gain a lot of time on his rival. Meanwhile, Bottas was able to set the fastest lap, despite having not pitted yet.
The pit window resulted in some great battles between the mid-runners. Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg got close in the corner when Hulkenberg tried to put his Renault around the outside of the Haas.
Antonio Giovinazzi put up a fight against Hulkenberg before the Renault driver was able to get by. He slowed to let Raikkonen, his teammate, overtake him. He then quickly fell into the clutches of Lando Norris. After several overtaking attempts, Romain Grosjean joined the action. After a few laps, Alexander Albon and Sergio Perez entered the train, but no one could get by Giovinazzi, who was doing his best to block the rookie.
While this battle was going on, Bottas finally pitted for medium tyres on lap 24, giving the race lead to Max Verstappen. Critically, Bottas rejoined the track comfortably ahead of Charles Leclerc. He returned to the race lead when Verstappen pitted for new tyres a couple of laps later.
Eventually, Norris was able to dive by Giovinazzi. Grosjean followed suit, as did Perez when he began to struggle for grip on his degraded tyres. He stayed out on the track, holding up Albon for another lap. He was called into the pits for new tyres, but suffered from a slow pit stop, dropping him further back.
Charles Leclerc was the last of the leading cars to pit for tyres, mirroring his teammates hard compound strategy on lap 29. His teammate Vettel was feeling the pressure from the pursuing Verstappen. Verstappen attempted to fling his Red Bull around the outside in turn one, but Vettel covered the inside, preventing the move. But the defensive position gave him a slower run down the straight, allowing Verstappen to sneak past and take P3.
About halfway through the race distance, Ricciardo parked his car in the garage, putting an end to his day. Grosjean did the same when his front-left wheel came loose on the circuit. When he made his pit stop, the team had struggled to get the front tyre on the car.
At the front of the field, Bottas had extended his race lead to more than 20 seconds, while his teammate continued to struggle for rear traction. Vettel’s pace began to drop off as well, as Leclerc began to creep his way closer to his teammate ahead, eventually closing to within the DRS zone of his teammate. But, whether due to team orders or a performance deficit, Leclerc quickly dropped back to more than 2 seconds behind his teammate.
Verstappen was closing the gap to Hamilton but ran wide in the first corner with about ten laps to go, losing out on a lot of time and delaying the brewing battle. With just a few laps remaining in the race, Verstappen began his charge after Hamilton, robbing the fastest lap from Bottas in the process.
With that, the top three drivers all began to push for the fastest lap of the race, which is now worth an additional point this season. On the penultimate lap, Bottas was able to take the fastest lap and keep it.
In addition to taking the extra point for the fastest lap, he collected a further 25 for his race victory with a lead of more than 20 seconds. Hamilton and Verstappen concluded the podium with Vettel managing to stay in front of Leclerc.
Above results table does not include any post-race penalties
