Mclaren’s win right on the Button; Jenson wins Australian Grand Prix

19^th March 2012

Derek Baker

Derek Baker

19 March 2012

With the Formula One season off and under way, McLaren’s Jenson Button triumphed in a dominant drive of class and style at the Australian Grand Prix.

Team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who had out qualified his fellow Brit, finished third, as Button beat Hamilton into the first corner and pulled away for the win.

2011’s world champion, Sebastian Vettel claimed second spot after snatching second from Hamilton under a safety car incident, whilst Mark Webber finished fourth in the sister Red Bull.

Fernando Alonso, showed pure talent bringing a Ferrari car, not up to the standard of their title rivals, home in fifth, whilst Felipe Massa retired on lap 48.

The Brazilian driver’s critics will no doubt have their say once again, as he struggled throughout, and was a long way off the pace of the race’s front runners.

However former Ferrari driver, Kimi Raikkonen, who won the world championship for the Scuderia in 2007, finished a credible seventh after returning from his two-year-stint in rally driving, whilst his team-mate, Romain Grosjean, who qualified an impressive third the previous day, only lasted two laps before being forced to retire.

But this race was all about the 2009 world champion, who showed why he has the potential to add to his solitary single title three years ago.

Button continued his impressive form of last year by racing away from his opponents twice, the second time because of the deployment of a safety car, to finish two seconds clear of Vettel’s Red Bull.

The Vodaphone McLaren Mercedes had looked impressive during pre-season testing, and the pace of the car looked as if it could build on the six wins the team conjured up last year to mount a serious push for the constructors’ championship this year, whilst providing a car for Button or Hamilton to mount a push for the driver’s crown.

And with the team securing the hat-trick of pole position, race victory, and fastest lap (Jenson Button’s 56th lap of 1min 29.187) the team from Woking look to have a title-winning package.

However, as good a drive as it was from the 32-year-old, Melbourne’s street circuit is much different to the typical F1 tracks across the globe.

The drivers and teams now head to Malaysia for the season’s first race in Asia in just a week’s time, where Button, McLaren, and all of Britain back at home will be hoping for a repeat performance again.

Derek Baker