Matt Kew: Weekend Review: Melbourne

The 2015 season commenced in much the same way as 2014 finished, with the Silver Arrows looking imperious once again. However, despite what may appear to be a simple win for Hamilton, the Australian Grand Prix was far from short of on track action and talking points circulating the paddock.

The return of the Mercs

Free Practice:

The weekend began with farcical scenes at Sauber. Former test driver, Giedo Van Der Garde, diverted attention once again to the politics that encircle the sport. Having pursued legal action against his former team, Van Der Garde claimed he was entitled to a 2015 seat based on a deal made with Sauber during 2014. This came to a head when the Australian judge sided with the driver resulting in seeing the exiled driver don a set of Marcus Ericsson’s race overalls in Friday practice. Such was the turmoil surrounding the case, to a point where team principal Monisha Kaltenborn could have been facing jail time, that Sauber refrained from running in any of the free practice sessions. However, come Saturday, reportedly a verbal agreement was made and Giedo backed down from taking further action, presumably due to mounting pressure from the rest of the F1 world who condemned such events.

Practice saw Daniel Ricciardo suffer heavily after only 19 laps. Before a wheel had been turned in anger he lost 1 of the 4 power units permitted to be used for the entirety of the season. In other news, Manor Marussia who raced to be in Melbourne failed to make an appearance for the whole of the weekend and seemingly showed no intention of doing so, in return drawing criticism from Mr Ecclestone.

Qualifying:

With Manor not running, qualifying got under way with the McLarens locking out the back row of the grid. After Lewis set his pole lap the gap between the two teams was stark, a staggering five seconds between the constructors from Brackley and Woking. Most of the difference is down to the performance, or rather lack of, from the Honda power unit thus serving to highlight the immense struggle that 2015 will pose to the McLaren team. It will make for a fascinating story to see how a team so accustomed to winning ways will cope with the mountainous struggle that lay ahead.

Q2 threw up a surprise in the shape of Red Bull driver Daniil Kvyat who was only 13^th fastest constituting to team principal Christian Horner’s public slandering of the Renault power unit and their little progress made over the winter months. But to add further embarrassment to the once dominant Red Bulls, their sister and junior team Toro Rosso out performed Kvyat with Verstappen piloting the STR10 to 12^th on the grid in his debut weekend in Formula 1. Sauber’s off track circus was soon hushed as fellow rookie, Felipe Nasr qualified an impressive 11^th place. A welcome turn of form from the team who scored 0 points in 2014, their first season of zero return since entering the sport in 1993.

Sauber: from prosecution to point scoring

Unlike McLaren, Lotus were entering the first round of the new season fully expecting to make large steps forward in their form, this proved to be the case as both cars made it to Q3 for the first time since the 2013 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. 9^th place Grosjean commenting on the much better driveability of the E23.

Other notable performances came from Toro Rosso’s other rookie Carlos Sainz Jr. who came very close to humiliating the Red Bulls as his lap time was worthy of 8^th place, only 2 tenths of a second behind Daniel Ricciardo. Nevertheless the home boy received rapturous and audible applause from the Aussie crowd. Williams claimed the best of the rest prize with Massa finishing in 3^rd position but the Ferraris where right on his gearbox finishing 4^th and 5^th already matching their best qualifying result of 2014.

The front row made for familiar reading. Hamilton was 1.4 seconds faster than the next non-Mercedes car. Rosberg claimed second despite a mistake ridden Q3 but was comfortably 8 tenths clear of third on the grid.

The Race:

Before the race was under way the field lost a further three cars. Kvyat suffered from a gearbox failure on his out lap, as did Magnussen who failed to start due to engine issues. Bottas was not permitted to race on medical grounds having damaged the discs in his back. This combined with Manor’s absence meant only 15 cars went racing in Albert Park.

Hamilton made a flawless start from pole position and managed the gap to Rosberg for the remainder of the race, keeping collective but fiercely fast when required from the outset. Rosberg duly acknowledged this in his post-race interview. Without wishing to read too much into the psyche of a Formula 1 driver, I was always under the impression that Rosberg had the mental edge in 2014. But Nico appeared dejected and in admiration of the “World Champion” as he referred to Hamilton on multiple occasions seemingly conceding defeat to Hamilton in the first round as opposed to an aggression that spawned from their clear rivalry last season. Regardless, Mercedes have clearly maintained their advantage over the rest of the field, rightly so having not rested on their laurels and massively developing and improving the car for the new season.

Having started with only 15 cars, the field would eventually drop to just 11 finishers. Both Lotus cars were claimed by the end of the opening lap with Grosjean suffering terminal technical issues and Maldonado promptly put his Lotus in the wall following the repercussions of Sainz tagging Raikkonen. Verstappen followed after suffering an engine failure, but bar this unreliability all three rookies, Sainz, Nasr and Verstappen performed admirably to justify their selection.

Maldonado: 5/5 failed attempts to finish in Australia

The remainder of the race served up plenty of talking points. Nasr was the highest classified rookie having piloted his Sauber to a remarkable 5^th place, taking 10 points. His result was all the more impressive considering qualifying was the first outing for the Sauber driver at Melbourne due to the team’s off track politics preventing any Friday running. In the season preview post last week, I commented on how Williams would be hoping to build on last season by seeking race wins as this had evaded the team last season due to conservative tactics, however the team suffered a similar fate when their pit stop brought Massa out behind the Ferrari of Vettel who drove to an excellent 3^rd place finish claiming ‘best the rest’.

McLaren achieved more than many anticipated when Button managed to complete the full race distance. Although in part to turning the power down to conserve the engine, it still marked the most consecutive laps driven in the MP4-30 to date. Button proved that despite the cars woeful pace he still wanted to “have fun with the car” as seen by his fantastic defending against a much faster Perez. Once again, I find myself wanting to read more into Button’s mentality than is perhaps required. Button has been overly optimistic about his team this season and I wonder whether this is Button playing his part to keep the team on board and secure another year racing at the pinnacle of motorsport. At the end of last season Button’s future in F1 was under real jeopardy so by sweet talking the team maybe he is trying to optimise his chances of being retained by McLaren in the future. But this is of course mere speculation.

Kimi's one of many poor pitstops

One reoccurring theme throughout the Grand Prix was the consistently poor quality of the pit stops from most of the teams. In particular Carlos Sainz Jr. and Kimi Raikkonen lost out the most. Sainz was stationary for over 30 seconds as the left rear gun failed. Raikkonen’s two pit stops massively dampened what looked like an impressive race from a revitalised Ferrari team. The first stop was slow and the second caused Kimi to retire. Once again the left rear was at fault causing the retirement as he was released from the pit box before the wheel was seated. As a result the mechanic managing the wheel was seen being collared by new team boss Arrivabene as he attempted to investigate the failing himself. The abiding memory was the teams looking very race rusty in their pit stops despite thorough rehearsals throughout winter.

Overall the opening Grand Prix served well to confirm the pace of Mercedes, the improvement from Maranello and provided a refreshing story in the form of the 14 points scored by Sauber. Now we look to Malaysia with the return of Bottas, Alonso and Manor and to see the true performance of those that failed to live up to expectations or were plagued with unreliability. It’s great to be racing once again.