Game on at Mercedes — Bottas earns dominant victory in season opener, Hamilton a distant second; Red Bull’s Verstappen gets first Australian podium with strong P3; Ferrari flummoxed

After getting pipped for the pole in Melbourne by Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in Saturday qualifying for the season opening Australian Grand Prix Valtteri Bottas and the rest of the F1 world could be forgiven for thinking “here we go again.” But come race day at the Albert Park hybrid street circuit, Bottas decided to flip the script that saw him playing wingman to Hamilton’s team leader for the past 2 seasons. After earning precisely zero victories in 2018, Bottas spent the off season hardening his body and mind. And when the lights went out to start a race for the first time in 2019 the Finnish driver leapt away from the line and left Hamilton in his rearview mirrors. Bottas quickly established such a comfortable lead over his 5-time and current World Champion teammate that Hamilton was never able to make a dent in it for the entirety of this 58 lap Grand Prix. While the team brought Hamilton in for Medium compound Pirelli tires on Lap 16 in response to the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel’s stop a lap earlier, Bottas kept swanning away on track for several more laps on the preferred Soft rubber. Running in clean air, Bottas actually increased his lead and took it all the way to Lap 23 for his first and only stop, also going onto the Mediums.

Crucially, Bottas got on better with both those tires and his machine than Hamilton, who was left grumbling about pit strategy and the poor performance of his Pirellis relative to his teammate. No on in the field had anything for Bottas in this year’s Australian GP. In the end he dusted Hamilton by over 21 seconds, laying down a promising marker — as well as the fastest lap of the race, which earns a bonus point this year — and serving potential notice that this year Hamilton could be facing the stiffest challenge since the determined Nico Rosberg was his Silver Arrows stablemate. Of course one swallow does not make a spring but the dominant performance by Bottas Down Under can only serve to increase his confidence for the fight ahead of him. It should also be interesting to see whether the previously cordial relationship between the two Mercedes drivers remains the same or if Bottas will have to deal with the head games that Lewis deployed on Rosberg now that he has a teammate who may once again pose a genuine threat.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen ran an excellent race nearly mounting a challenge against Hamilton for second place in the debut of the team’s new Honda power unit. Though the Dutchman ran out of laps he still earned his first Aussie podium and was far quicker than the Ferraris. All was not peachy for Red Bull, though, as Pierre Gasly could not overcome his poor qualifying or the returning Daniil Kvyat who could be said to have replaced him at Toro Rosso with his promotion. Gasly finished out of the points in P11 in his first race for the big team. So in terms of Constructors points Ferrari bettered Red Bull, with Vettel taking P4 and Charles Leclerc finishing P5 in his maiden drive for the famed Scuderia. But beneath that points haul all was not well with the venerable team from Maranello. Vettel’s Prancing horse was positively pokey and he not only proved helpless to withstand Vertsppen’s Lap 31 overtaking maneuver but could not respond with any sort ion charge of his own and wound up with about a 35 second deficit to the  P3 Red Bull by the time the checkered flag flew. Worse still, Leclerc was clearly faster and likely would have overtaken the putative team number 1 if not for orders from the pit wall telling the young Monégasque to hold station. That left Vettel and new team boss Mattia Binotto scratching their heads at the SF90s poor performance relative to Mercedes and Red Bull after everyone at Maranello had seemed so hopeful when their car was the quickest during spring testing. There is sure to be a lot of midnight oil burned back at Maranello trying to figure out where that pace went between now and the next GP.

Further back, Kevin Magnussen was the best of the rest with a solid and somewhat solitary P6 finish for Haas. His teammate Romain Grosjean was once again undone, however, by a similar pit mishap as occurred in this exact race last year and saw his left front tire work its way off on Lap 32, spoiling what could have been a better day for the still improving American team. Nico Hulkenberg came home P7 for Renault but again it paper over a mixed result and a missed opportunity as Daniel Ricciardo DNF’d yet again at his home grad prix. The affable Aussie, perhaps too eager to make a strong impression with his new Renault team, ran onto the verge on the getaway from the start line on lap 1 and ripped his front wing right off, incurring damage that eventually proved too significant to continue with. He’ll be hoping for a better run in Bahrain in two weeks time, though that was small consolation for he and his countrymen on this day.

Rounding out the Top 10, Kimi Raikkonen drove a steady race to take P8 and showed that Alfa Romeo are lucky to have the Finnish veteran to mentor their young driver Antonio Giovanazzi, who drove with spirit but finished well out of the points in P15 after a split tire strategy did not pan out for the young Italian. Lance Stroll, liberated from Williams, took P9 on his debut for Racing Point (formerly Force India). And Daniil Kvyat was P10, driving with determination in his return to F1 and the Toro Rosso team by holding off what is surely supposed to be the superior Red Bull of Gasly lap after lap until the finish, thereby securing the last point.

Top 10 finishers of the Australian GP:

Complete race results available at Formula1.com.

The next race is in two weeks time at the Bahrain International Circuit. With passing at a premium in the Australian GP it will be interesting to see if the changes the sport’s governing body made to theoretically enhance overtaking will actually come good in the desert. Likewise it will be intriguing to find out if Bottas can duplicate his dominant 26-point run today in Melbourne halfway acround the world in Bahrain and really apply the pressure to the recently unchallenged Hamilton. Hope to see you then to see how it all shake out!