I was so excited about the season-opener that I woke up an hour too early this morning! The race was definitely worth waiting for as it turned out to be filled with high speed action and intense battle on the track!
The start was staggering. Button was able to pass his team-mate right after the start and took the lead. Vettel had an impressive start from P6 and was able to overtake both his team-mate (who still doesn´t seem to have got rid of the bad starts...) and Nico´s Mercedes. Vettel had close battle with his compatriot Schumi and after trying to make a move on him the first time Vettel went wide into the grass but luckily he was able to return quickly back to the track. Only a little later Schumi made the same mistake and Seb was able to move up to 3rd. After a strong start Schumi had to retire due to a gearbox problem. Grosjean in his Lotus had a poor start and he had to retire the race very early after Maldonado crashing into him and destroying the front suspension of his car. Very unfortunate for the Frenchman, who started in P3!
The McLaren drivers were out of sight, Button leading the race and Hamilton following him some seconds behind. The Ferraris didn´t seem as bad as the qualifying suggested yesterday. Alonso had a strong race finishing 5th while Massa´s pace and performance was more than poor! Massa ended up retiring the race after colliding with Senna in his Williams. I´m starting to have difficulties trying to describe Massa´s driving... At least it can´t possibly get any worse than it currently is!
Kimi´s performance instead was absolutely brilliant! He started the race in P17 but finished 7th! Kimi had plenty of exciting wheel-to-wheel racing and I´m sure he enjoyed every minute of it! Battling against others has been the thing that Ice Man has been missing from Formula 1 and today it seemed as if he hadn´t been away at all... I mean his skills in overtaking are still there and he did fantastic job on the track! Kimi had tight racing with the Saubers, especially with Kobayashi.
The safety car was deployed on lap 38 due to Petrov´s Caterham stopping in the main straight after losing power steering. After the re-start Kobayashi was able to overtake Kimi moving up to 9th. Vettel had passed Hamilton at the second pitstops and splitted the McLarens. Webber managed to recover from the bad start and was 4th behind his team-mate. Maldonado in Williams had a great race and he was in P6... until he crashed on the FINAL lap due to a mistake of his own! So a lot of harm caused by Maldonado today! Kimi was able to snatch three positions on the last lap (Nico had a puncture on the final lap and Kimi passed Perez on the final turn) and finished the race 7th gaining 6 championship points! Alonso finished 5th, Kobayashi 6th and Perez 8th so strong performance from the Sauber team! Williams seems to have the pace as well but mistakes like Maldonado´s shouldn´t happen!!
I was extremely happy to see Vettel on the podium today. It´s comforting to know that Red Bull has the pace. Kimi´s epic performance leaves me thinking "what ifs"... Would Kimi have been up there fighting for the podium places if he had started in P3 like his team-mate..? Luckily there´re only 5 days to wait until the first practice at Malaysia! One thing seems to be certain: this season is going to be A LOT tighter than last year!
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