Sebastian Vettel wins F1 season's first Grand Prix in Australia

Sebastian VettelFerraris Sebastian Vettel took advantage of a virtual safety car to steal the lead from Mercedes reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton as he won the Australian Grand Prix the first of the Formula One season on Sunday The German starting from third behind his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen and Hamilton on pole took the lead when he pitted while the virtual safety car was out following Romain Grosjeans retirement after a failed tyre change reports EfeWe got a bit lucky obviously with the safety car but I really enjoyed it I was hoping my start would be a bit better Vettel saidI was praying for the safety car the fourtime world champion addedWhile Hamiltons speed was limited due to the VSC Vettels in the pitlanes was not allowing him to come out ahead of the Briton in first positionHamilton suddenly finding himself in second place was not able to get close enough to trouble Vettel despite having the best overall paceThe clean air in front of Vettel and the turbulent air behind him kept Hamilton at bay and despite starting from pole position and not making any major errors the Mercedes man was forced to settle for second behind the Germans FerrariToday they just did a better job Hamilton said This is one awesome circuit but its so hard to overtake At the end we were just trying to live to fight another dayThe result will be good news for fans hoping for a more unpredictable season and a challenge to the dominance shown by Mercedes over recent yearsThe German team has won the last four world championships with Lewis Hamilton winning three of themAn uneventful start had meant the top three drivers maintained their starting positions and Hamilton held off an early challenge from Raikkonen in second place before he began to open up a gapHaas Magnussen overtook Verstappen on turn one in the only change to the top of the leaderboardThe top three began to open up a gap ahead of Magnussen whom Verstappen could not get pastThe Dutchman let his frustration get the better of him when he spun at turn 1 dropping three places as his teammate Ricciardo Grosjean in the other Haas and Nico Hulkenberg overtook himWith no crashes at the start and overtaking difficult at Albert Park the race quickly became about pit strategyRaikkonen pitted on lap 18 with Hamilton following a lap later allowing Vettel into first place who tried to extract as much as he could from the tyres he started with and open up a gap on Hamilton in second before his crucial pit stopMagnussens race was over after a tyre change went wrong on lap 23 a hugely disappointing end after such a promising start from the DaneHaas day soon got worse as Grosjean crashed out after another failed tyre changeThe virtual safety car came out and Vettel pitted taking advantage of the temporarily limited race speed to come out ahead of Hamilton and retain the lead which he would not relinquishDespite a late push against Kimi Raikkonens Ferrari from Daniel Ricciardo the Red Bull man was unable to give the home fans a first ever podium finish from an Australian driverFernando Alonso produced an excellent result in his McLaren raising hopes that the team might be about to enter a more fruitful and successful era after their recent troublesThe Spanish twotime world champion surged from 11th to finish in 5th ahead of Max Verstappens Red Bull in sixthWhile Ferrari and Vettel in particular can count themselves lucky they showed enough pace to suggest they will push Mercedes all the way this yearCatch up on all the latest sports news and updates here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever