F1 2019: Valtteri Bottas wins Australia Grand Prix

As the 2019 season finally began in earnest at the Australian Grand Prix, Mercedes Valtteri Bottas enjoyed a sensational start to his year with a dominant display in Melbourne, leading home team mate Lewis Hamilton for a Mercedes one-two ahead of the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

Bottas finished the race over 20 seconds clear of the field, and even claimed a bonus point for the fastest lap of the race to come away from Albert Park with a full 26 points. Ferrari were forced to play third best in Australia, Sebastian Vettel finishing fourth for the Scuderia, one place up on his team mate Charles Leclerc, who was called off the attack on the German late in the race. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen headed off a hugely competitive and closely fought midfield in sixth, ahead of the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg and the Alfa Romeo of Kimi Raikkonen in eighth.

Behind, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen headed what looks to be a very evenly matched ‘front’ of the midfield, the Dane in P6 to Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat in P10 separated by less than 10 seconds. So, the spoils go to Valtteri Bottas who, after failing to score a victory in 2018, has got one under his belt with just one race down in 2019.

Every time a driver has headed a team one-two in Melbourne, that driver has gone on to win the championship, while the team has taken the constructors. Have we just witnessed the dawn of Valtteri Bottas as a serious championship contender? The teams and drivers will head back to Europe to debrief on the opening race, before reconvening in a little less than two weeks in Sakhir for the Bahrain Grand Prix. There they can expect a very different challenge to Melbourne, with hot temperatures, an abrasive track surface and a layout which offers plenty of opportunities for overtaking.

Lewis Hamilton won Australian GP

The inaugural race of 66^th Formula One Championship is won by Lewis Hamilton. He made the perfect start to the defence of his Formula One world championship with one of the straightest win of his career in Albert Park, Australia. It was Hamilton 34^th win and first wins in Albert Park since his championship year of 2008. He led from start to finish, driving well within himself to push team-mate Nico Rosberg into second place, followed by Sebastian Vettel from Ferrari, Felipe Massa from Williams, debutant Felipe Nasr from Sauber, and Daniel Ricciardo from Red Bull.

Lewis Hamilton won with +1.360 seconds from Rosberg who came second. Hamilton average speed was 200.80 MPH. But this was the race totally dominated by Mercedes, who didn’t even flex their considerable muscle for a one-two result. With Red Bull and McLaren looking in disappointing form, it will be up to Ferrari and Williams to make this a competitive season. Apart from Mercedes the happiest team was Sauber, with Felipe Nasr finished fifth and Marcus Ericsson eighth after the team’s very difficult week fighting legal problems.

It was also an encouraging day for Force India after their recent financial problems, with both drivers finishing among their points. There were only 11 finishers, with most of the causalities falling before or at the start of the race. Last man Jenson Button was the only driver to finish out of the points. Valtteri Bottas, who had qualified for sixth place on the grid, was ruled unfit by an FIA medical delegate because of a tear in his lower back, and had to withdraw.

With Manor not taking part this reduced the official starting grid to 17 cars. But there were only 15 at the start because both Kevin Magnussen and Daniil Kvyat failed to survive their reconnaissance laps. Magnussen came to a halt between turns five and six with a plume of smoke coming out of his car and Kvyat spun into gravel with suspected transmission trouble. After second lap there were only 13 cars left. Meanwhile, Hamilton had to go off to a good start ahead of his team mate Rosberg and won the first race of 2015.

Next Formula One race will be in Petronas Malaysia from 27-29 March.