Jenson Button won the Australian Grand Prix in a breathless, fascinating and thrilling race that pulled Formula One back from the brink of despair. Fans around the world had lost faith in a sport that produced a desperate bore in Bahrain a fortnight ago when it seemed the scientists and boffins had wrecked any hope of a spectacle.
But from the Bahrain bore to magnificent Melbourne in one fell swoop, a race that had more excitement in two minutes around tree-lined Albert Park than in all of the two hours in the desert.
Button won but it was Lewis Hamilton, his embattled team-mate, who was simply sensational. He had come into this race branded a dangerous menace after being picked up by police on his way home from the circuit on Friday. Officers pulled him over when they spotted the smoking tyres of his Mercedes sports saloon as Hamilton passed their police van. His car was impounded and he faces a big fine.
It seemed that the worldwide publicity got to the 2008 World Champion as he was forced to apologise and face the constant criticism of the authorities here. His qualified a lowly and troubled eleventh and faced an uphill climb with three more world champions – Button, Fernando Alonso for Ferrari and Michael Schumacher in the Mercedes – ahead of him in the grid.
But there were no smoking tyres in the grand prix as Hamilton proved what we all know about him – that he is the ultimate racer. He roared away from the start, dodged a first corner incident that claimed Schumacher and then swept by car after car. McLaren’s decision to bring him in mid-race to fit new tyres meant Hamilton was always fighting to make up lost ground - he finished sixth but it could have been higher if he had not been tagged by a hapless Mark Webber, the home favourite, just two laps from the end. Times Online
A stubborn Robert Kubica claimed second for Renault, holding off the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.
“It was one of the drives of my life,” Hamilton said. “Unfortunately due to the strategy I got put back and then I drove my heart out today and I think I deserved better. Everyone else in front of me did one stop and I did two.”
In a sign of the drama to come, positions at the front of the pack were immediately jumbled into the first corner, with Massa making the biggest gain as he took advantage of the dry side of the track to pick his way up from seventh to second.
Michael Schumacher’s underwhelming return continued as he trailed home 10th after spending much of the middle part of the race trapped behind the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari.
Schumacher’s former team Ferrari now occupy the top two positions in the drivers’ standings with Alonso on 37 points, three clear of Massa, and race-winner Button third on 31 points. BBC Sport
“This is a very special victory because I’ve only been with this team for a short time,” Button said afterwards. “It’s taken me a little time to get to grips with a new car and to adapt inside the cockpit, but the team has been fantastic. The pit stop was my call. It’s a lot easier for the driver to feel the conditions than the guys in the pits. It was the right call and I’m very happy that I made it. We’ll take a lot from this. I feel I’m building in confidence and hopefully we can do something similar in the next race.” The Guardian
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