For those of you who woke up yesterday expecting the first qualifying sessions of the 2013 F1 season, disappointment was in abundance. Getting up at 6AM GMT to watch it rain in Australia leading to the rescheduling of the session was very frustrated. Run six hours before the race, qualifying ended with Vettel taking pole position.

With all 22 cars lined up on the grid for the race, the eagerness of everyone wanting to find out just who had come out of winter with the strongest package was palpable. Lights out saw, rather predictably Sebastian Vettel shoot off into the distance whilst his team mate had technical issues that led to a KERS malfunction. Both Ferrari’s were very quick off of the line with Massa leading the pair for the majority of the race. The McLaren cars struggled throughout only managing to improve slightly on their qualifying positions.

This race was one based upon tyre stagey and whilst Hamilton looked like he was in with a shot on the podium, he was forced to change to a three stop due to tyre degradation. His team mate, Rosberg, ended up with a DNF due to mechanical failure. Red Bull may have a very fast car but their hard work was undone by the machine eating its tyres at a rate much faster than predicted. It was Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus that was not only very fast, but played nice with the new 2013 compounds of tyres. Making only two stops Kimi said victory today was “easy.”

It would appear a new pecking order has revealed itself in Formula One and Lotus are sitting pretty at the top of the food chain.

 

Leaderboard – Final

 

 

 

1

 Kimi Raikkonen - Lotus

25

 

2

Fernando Alonso – Ferrari

18

 

 

3

Sebastian Vettel – Red Bull

15

 

 

4

Felipe Massa – Ferrari

12

 

 

5

Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes

10

 

 

6

Mark Webber – Red Bull

8

 

 

7

Adrian Sutil – Force India

6

 

 

8

Paul di Resta – Force India

4

 

 

9

Jenson Button – McLaren

2

 

 

10

Romain Grosjean – Lotus

1

 

 

11

Sergio Perez – McLaren

0

 

 

12

Jean-Eric Vergne – Toro Rosso

0

 

 

13

Esteban Gutierrez – Sauber

0

 

 

14

Valtteri Bottas – Williams

0

 

 

15

Jules Bianchi – Marussia

0

 

 

16

Charles Pic – Caterham

0

 

 

17

Max Chilton – Marussia

0

 

 

18

Giedo van der Garde – Caterham

0

 

 

19

Daniel Ricciardo – Toro Rosso

0

 

 

20

Nico Rosberg – Mercedes

0

 

 

21

Pastor Maldonado – Williams

0

 

 

22

Nico Hulkenberg – Sauber