Sebastian Vettel defeats Lewis Hamilton at Formula 1 season opener
Formula 1
Vettel leap frogged Hamilton in the pitstops and went on to win with Hamilton fending off new team-mate Valtteri Bottas in third.
“It was about time,” said Marchionne, Ferrari Team boss after the race.
“We’ve been waiting for this victory for almost a year and a half. Hearing the Italian national anthem again was very moving.”
“Sebastian delivered a great race and I am sure Kimi will be soon up there battling alongside his teammate.”
Hamilton lost some time behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and as Vettel re joined after his 2nd pit stop and going on to win the race by almost 10 seconds.
Kimi Raikkonen finished 4th in the Ferrari with Verstappen 6 seconds behind in the Red Bull/Renault.
Fernando Alonso finished 10th in the ailing Mclaren. Alonso mentioned running in the points with such an “uncompetitive car” surprised him.
Australian local Daniel Riccardio went into the weekend with high hopes of a home town win but in the end retired after having started in 15th position due to a penalty for a gearbox change.
A fuel pressure problem left him out of the race after just 25 Laps
“It’s been fun, but I feel bad for everyone, bad for the fans obviously – there’s more people here supporting me than the others.It just kinda snowballed from yesterday. The five[-place] grid penalty sounded bad enough but we had other issues. We were laps down, but getting some information – it was valuable track time. At the end we believe it was something to do with fuel pressure – basically it just switched off. It was just instant, there was no procedure I could do to stay out there. I’m happy to move on. I’m disappointed today, but I’ll be ready tomorrow to go for China.”
The Chinese Shanghai Grand Prix is next on the Formula 1 calendar and with just two weeks to go, it will be very interesting to see if anything changes in the current pecking order.
