Jenson Button wins lights to finish Australian Grand Prix

Button leads home Vettel and Hamilton in exciting season-opener

The season-opening Australian Grand Prix has been won by Jenson Button after a stunning lights to finish drive, followed home by reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel and his team-mate Lewis Hamilton. The race saw several incidents, including Felipe Massa who’s race weekend went from bad to worse.

As the lights went out, Jenson Button was able to get a fantastic getaway and beat his McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton into turn 1. Behind the British pairing, the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg slotted neatly into 3rd and 4th place as Romain Grosjean fell behind.

Going into turn 1, there was contact towards the rear of the field as Bruno Senna and Daniel Ricciardo came together. Both were lucky to continue, albeit with an excursion into the pits for various checks. F1 returnee Nico Hulkenberg retired early on, after being involved in a collision with the Red Bull of Mark Webber. The local hero was lucky to escape turn 1 unscathed without serious damage after getting hit by two cars through the first turn.

As the first lap drew to a close, Pastor Maldonado muscled his way passed Romain Grosjean, the two unfortunately coming together. The result was a premature end to Romain Grosjean’s race as the Frenchman’s front right tyre received damage from the Williams driver.

Sebastian Vettel found himself in 4th place as the early stages of the race wore on, as Nico Rosberg fell behind. The reigning World Champion ran wide at turn 1 as he hunted down the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher. The Red Bull got passed the Mercedes as Michael Schumacher ran wide at turn 1 and slowed down dramatically, the German suffering from a gearbox failure and subsequently retiring.

With the degradation levels of the Pirelli’s set to dominate the teams’ strategies, Felipe Massa was the first driver from the front running teams’ to pit on lap 12. He was followed by Rosberg (lap 13), Alonso (lap 14), Webber (lap 15), Button (lap 16) and Hamilton (lap 17).

Kimi Raikkonen had a strong opening stint in his return to the sport, after starting 17th the Finn found himself towards the sharp end of the field as the opening pit-stops began. The ‘Iceman’ held out to lap 20 before finally pitting for his first stop of the day.

Last year Sergio Perez raised a few eyebrows after completing a 1-stop race strategy. And history repeated itself as the Mexican completed another 1-stop strategy, holding up many front runners’ as they completed their first stops. Lewis Hamilton spent the most amount of time behind the Sauber, as Sebastian Vettel closed the gap. Perez finally made his one and only stop on lap 25.

Felipe Massa suffered a disastrous opening race of the season, falling down the order as he lost out to the likes of Kimi Raikkonen and Kamui Kobayashi during the middle of the race. His day went from bad to worse as Paul Di Resta and rookie Jean-Eric Vergne shot through, the Brazilian being off the pace all weekend.

Towards lap 30, many of the teams began to switch their attention to their second stops of the day. Rosberg pitted on lap 32, and was followed by Alonso on lap 35 and the two McLaren’s on lap 36. The McLaren team opted to double stop their cars’, as Hamilton began to complain of his rear tyres ‘going off’.

As the rest of the field began to pit, the Caterham of Vitaly Petrov pulled to the side of the track down the start-finish straight. This was due to a steering issue, and caused the one and only Safety Car period of the race. As soon as the Safety Car emerged, Vettel shot into the pits on lap 36 and leapfrogged the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton.

Caterham’s woes intensified as Heikki Kovalainen also retired due to steering issues, bringing an end the teams weekend. After looking good in winter testing, Caterham have undeniably suffered a less than successful weekend in Australia.

On lap 42, the Safety Car peeled into the pits and Jenson Button shot away from Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. On lap 47, Felipe Massa’s misfortunate weekend continued as he collided with the Williams of Bruno Senna. This resulted in both Brazilian’s eventually retiring from the race.

As the Australian Grand Prix entered its final stages, three battles on track emerged for 3rd place, 5th place and 10th place. The battle for 5th place between Fernando Alonso and Pastor Maldonado ended in tears as the Venezuelan driver lost the car on the kerb and smashed head-on into the concrete wall on the final lap.

On the final lap, there was melee through the final corners as Sergio Perez, Daniel Ricciardo, Paul Di Resta, Jean-Eric Vergne and Nico Rosberg all battled for the final few points paying positions. In the end, Rosberg slowed with an issue as Ricciardo, Di Resta and Vergne were only covered by 0.1 seconds across the line.

With such an exciting start to the 2012 season, all eyes now turn to next weekend as the Formula 1 circus moves on to Kuala Lumpur’s Sepang circuit at Malaysia.

Follow me on Twitter - @AndyYoungF1