Formula 1:Dream start for Ferrari

by Rolf Fleckenstein

Okay, admittedly there's a bit much jubilation and euphoria at the moment, soon the sober racing routine will take hold again, but at the moment the joy prevails, not only about the victory in Melbourne, but much more about the fact that the spell of Mercedes dominance of recent years has been broken, at least for the moment. What was apparent in practice became reality in the race. Lewis Hamilton on Mercedes was able to take the lead at the start from pole position, but he was unable to pull away from pursuer Sebastian Vettel on Ferrari. Ferrari was able to catch up technically with Mercedes in 2017 and is now fighting on a par with the Silver Arrows, and that made the race exciting.

The decisive change in leadership
As a result, Hamilton led the first 17 laps by a narrow margin of around one second on Vettel, but then pitted early for a tire change, which in retrospect turned out to be unnecessarily premature. When he got back on track, he had Max Verstappen on Red Bull in front of him. And overtaking him was simply out of the question. When Vettel pitted, he had a lead of around 23-24 seconds over Vettel, which really shouldn't be enough. But the further lap behind Verstappen surely cost Hamilton another second, so Vettel was able to get razor-thinly ahead of Verstappen and Hamilton behind him as he shot out of the pits. That was the decisive lead change of the race. Vettel quickly managed to pull away from the two pursuers. When Verstappen pitted, it was a blessing for Hamilton but somehow too late, as he was unable to close the 6-second gap to Vettel that already existed.

In the meantime, the unlucky driver of the weekend, Daniel Ricciardo, had to retire from Red Bull due to technical problems, having already spun in qualifying. Not his race weekend. The retirement was also annoying for Fernando Alonso, who was able to hold onto a respectable 10th place for a long time.

Dream start for Ferrari
In the end, things turned out just as the Ferraristi had hoped. Sebastian Vettel was able to drive home a sure victory and thus make a dream start to the new season for Ferrari. The joy of "Seb", who fell around the necks of his mechanics, was correspondingly enormous. As expected, Mercedes drivers Hamilton and Bottas finished on the podium. At the moment, Mercedes and Ferrari are unchallenged at the top, but the season is still long, so a lot can and will happen.

Finally Bottas convinced with a strong performance, he was clearly superior to his teammate in some laps, a strong debut at the Mercedesteam for him. Esteban Ocon on Force India scored his first World Championship points in his first Formula 1 race, congratulations. Substitute driver Antonio Giovinazzi from the Sauber team did an excellent job and finished in 12th place.