A rain delayed qualifying ultimately saw a Red Bull front row for the 2013 Australian Grand Prix. Did the race see Red Bull follow on from 2012?
But the race start saw Lotus’s Kimi Raikonnen move from seventh on the grid up to fourth place in the opening laps in a move that proved to be just the start of a stunning drive – and a clever two-stop strategy – that saw him move in to the lead on the 23rd lap as other front runners – Alonso, Vettel and Massa – hit the pits for the second of their three stops.
Raikkonen lost the lead after his second pit stop as Alonso put in a set of very quick laps to take the front spot, but Raikkonen regained the lead when Alonso had to make his third stop, and came out behind Raikkonen, and drove to a convincing win for Lotus.
Sebastian Vettel ended up in third place – behind the Ferrari of Alonso – after the pace of the Red Bull fell short of that of the Ferrari and Lotus as he suffered tyre wear.
And it was tyre wear that was the undoing of an impressive Hamilton for his first time out with Mercedes. At one point he looked strong enough to compete for the win, but high tyre wear forced an unplanned third stop and he ended the race in a creditable fifth place behind the Ferrari of Massa.
Mark Webber managed to salvage sixth place behind Hamilton after a faulty ECU shut down his KERS and he got stuck behind a struggling Button in the unimpressive McLaren after his first pit stop, with Sutil putting his Fore India in seventh place after a good drive, just ahead of team mate Paul di Resta.
Jenson Button managed to drag his McLaren in to ninth place to at least be in the points and the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean took the final points place in tenth.
Could Lotus be the team to beat in 2013, usurping the struggling McLaren for a place in the top three?
Australian Grand Prix 2013 Results
- Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus
- Fernando Alonso | Ferrari
- Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull
- Felipe Massa | Ferrari
- Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes
- Mark Webber | Red Bull
- Adrian Sutil | Force India
- Paul di Resta | Force India
- Jenson Button | McLaren
- Romain Grosjean | Lotus
Sacha says
Kimi looked to do it with ease.
Richard says
Class drive from Lewis in the not brilliant Mercedes and well done to Kimi for keeping the Ferraris at bay!
Dave Lawrence says
Gutted this is no longer on terrestrial TV. Nice result though, hopefully will be an eventful championship.
Cars UK says
It is irritating to pay Murdoch’s shilling to see it live. But a quick Google for a live stream could give you an interesting result or two. Not that we’d advocate such a move!
Dave Price says
Good race and watched it live. Lotus did look strong and Button was lucky to salvage anything (and even though it didn’t matter this time, thanks for not putting the results in the headline like the BBC!!).
Cars UK says
We’ve always done it that way. There’s nothing worse than inadvertently coming across a headline that spoils the planned watch later in the day!