Nico Rosberg wins Down Under

The first Grand Prix of the new V6 turbo era is now in the history books with Nico Rosberg and Mercedes AMG F1 taking the chequered flag to win the 2014 Australian Grand Prix. Leading from the start, Nico Rosberg fought of the challenge of second placed Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull whilst McLaren rookie Kevin Magnussen completed the podium crossing the finish line in third.

This is Daniel Ricciardo’s first podium finish in Formula 1 and first with the Red Bull Racing team after replacing Mark Webber for the 2014 season. It is also Kevin Magnussen’s first every Formula 1 podium finish in his first Formula 1 race; he becomes the first Danish driver to ever finish an F1 race on the podium in doing-so.

The inaugural race of the season, filled with uncertainty, unreliability and excitement and disappointment, was reduced to just 57 laps after the first start of the race was aborted and the grid was forced to undertake a second formation lap. The total number of drivers on track then slowly diminished over the course of the race as a mixture of technical problems and crashes forced cars out of the race.

With the official race not even underway yet, Marussia’s Max Chilton was unable to make it off the line at the start of the first formation lap, whilst teammate Jules Bianchi struggled to start the second formation lap. Lotus’ Romain Grosjean was also handed a drive-through penalty for leaving the pit-lane before the allotted window.

When things finally did get underway, the start of the race certainly lacked the noise and sound of the start of a Formula 1 race that teams, drivers and fans alike are accustomed to from the previous V8 era of racing. But what lacked in noise made up for in excitement; quick off the line, Nico Rosberg launched himself into first place ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton whilst the rest of the grid followed. Going into the first corner, Caterham’s Kamui Kobayashi suffered from a massive lock-up. Unable to stop, Kobayashi took out Williams’ Felipe Massa and both drivers’ became the races’ first victims.

Just four laps later and yesterdays’ pole qualifier Lewis Hamilton was informed by his team that they would have to retire the car in order to save the engine. New technical regulations for 2014 instruct teams that they can only use 5 power units per season and with so many unanswered questions with the unproven technology this season; Mercedes were left with no choice but to avoid a blown unit on the first race.

By lap number 9, three time World Drivers’ Champion Sebastian Vettel was added to the retirees list followed shortly thereafter by an incident by Williams Racing’s Valtteri Bottas who hit the wall causing a puncture and forcing a Safety Car period.

Marussia were able to get Jules Bianchi back into the race, but joining the pack six laps behind the leader, it would be a hard worked afternoon for Marussia with both drivers sitting in the last two places of the race.

Racing got underway again on lap 16 with just 17 of the 22 drivers left on track and Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg once again took over at the front of the pack, leading ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen after the first round of pit stops and a Safety Car.

The order of the top three remained unchanged for several laps thereafter whilst the racing in Melbourne seemed to settle down until lap 29 when Caterham ordered their only remaining driver on track, Magnus Ericsson, to stop the car immediately citing a pressure problem. This reduced the running field to just 16 cars with just under half of the race to be run. A handful of laps later and the number dropped to 15 when Pastor Maldonado pulled his Lotus over, retiring from the race.

The second round of pit stops was seen with a flurry of action as several drivers opted to stop at the same time around the 37 lap mark. Jenson Button started things off a few laps earlier, and suffered from a unique nosecone failure when the point of his MP4-29 nosecone appeared to simply fall off when the front jack let the car down. The ensuing damage did not appear to have an effect on the cars running though and Button carried on with the race.

On lap 45, Romain Grosjean added himself to list of retirees for the race, reducing the field yet again to just 14 cars with just 12 laps remaining in the race. Grosjean’s retirement also meant that both Lotus drivers failed to finish the first race of the season and the team will be looking for a strong recovery when the season continues in Malaysia in two weeks’ time.

As always, the final laps of the race found drivers fighting closely for the best finish position possible. After sitting in second place for nearly the entire race, Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo found himself being pushed by third placed Kevin Magnussen with just 5 laps to go, who had closed the gap to under a second. Nico Rosberg remained unchallenged, leading by over 23 seconds in his V6 powered Mercedes. Behind, Kimi Raikkonen made a late five for seventh position, passing the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne with just two laps remaining.

In the end, Nico Rosberg’s performance was simply unmatched and too much for his challengers, winning the Australian Grand Prix by 24.525 seconds. Ricciardo placed second with Magnussen finishing just over 1 second behind. McLaren teammate Jenson Button crossed the line in fourth whilst Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso could manage just fifth place for Ferrari after overtaking Bottas and Hulkenberg late in the race.

Raikkonen would cross the line in eighth with the Toro Rosso duo of Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniil Kvyat taking the final race points available for the top ten finishers.

14 drivers were classified as finishing the Australian Grand Prix – Sergio Perez, Adrian Sutil, Esteban Gutierrez and Marrusia’s Max Chilton made up places eleven to fourteen.

The Formula 1 calendar returns on the weekend of March 28 – 30 for the 2014 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix in Kuala Lumpur.