Hamilton draws first blood in Melbourne!!!

Lewis Hamilton lead from pole to win the season opening race in Melbourne, Australia. The young Brit made no mistakes and capitalised on his pole position to give Mclaren Mercedes a win, at the start of the 2008 season . Nick Heildfeld in his BMW and Nico Rosberg in Williams came in second and third respectively.

Hamilton crossing the chequered flag almost went unnoticed in what was an eventful race from start to finish. With the safety car interrupting at least three times during the course of the race, Hamilton built and lost and again regained his lead several times. The other Mclaren of Heikki Kovalainen came in 5th behind the Renault of Fernando Alonso. Rubens Barichello finished 6th in his Honda, however there is confusion over a penalty which may be given for exiting the pit lane under red lights.***

Mclaren had an almost dream start to the season. On the other hand, Ferrari saw its worse nightmares coming true. It was a forgetful day for both its drivers. While Felipe Massa spun on the first lap and was later involved in an incident with Red Bull’s David Coulthard before retiring, and Kimi Raikkonen, having benefited from the second safety car intervention, slid off the road trying to pass McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen and undid all that work. Then his Ferrari let him down when he was running seventh with three laps to go.

Debutant Nelson Piquet Jr. in the Renault had a less than ordinary outing. He just kept trailing behind the car and in the end failed to finish the race. Sebastian Bourdais, who had quite dismall outings during the qualifying and practice sessions, had a relatively strong race debut. He managed to hold off both Alonso and Kovalainen towards the closing stages of the race. An engine failure cost him the 4th place but with no one else running as he retired, he was classified into the points scoring position.

The start of the race saw five drivers eliminated with Giancarlo Fisichella, Sebastian Vettel, Anthony Davidson, Jenson Button and Mark Webber all making contact in the opening turns. Adrian Sutil retired the second Force India with a mechanical problem after starting the race from the pit lane having damaged his primary car yesterday in qualifying.

Timo Glock in Toyota had a pretty ok race until he ran wide in the latter stages of the race and crashed spectacularly, damaging most of his car. His team mate Jarno Trulli retired earlier with suspected battery issues.

However for me, the biggest disappointment had to be BMW's Robert Kubica. Staring second on the grid, he didnt seem to have the speed to match Hamilton. He kept falling down the order, thanks to some oddly timed pit-stops before being hit from behind by Kazuki Nakajima in Williams, which finally ended his race.

In all, only 8 drivers managed to finish the race in what was a very event-filled season opener. Formula One heads to Sepang now, next week. Let's wait and watch for more of the drama to unfold. Here's how all the driver's finished today's race:

Pos Car.No. Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Pts
1 22 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 58 1:34:50.616 1 10
2 3 Nick Heidfeld BMW 58 +5.4 secs 5 8
3 7 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 58 +8.1 secs 7 6
4 5 Fernando Alonso Renault 58 +17.1 secs 11 5
5 23 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 58 +18.0 secs 3 4
6 8 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 57 +1 Lap 13 3
7 14 Sebastien Bourdais STR-Ferrari 55 +3 Laps 17 2
8 1 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 53 +5 Laps 15 1
Ret 4 Robert Kubica BMW 47 +11 Laps 2
Ret 12 Timo Glock Toyota 43 Accident 18
Ret 18 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 32 Transmission 19
Ret 6 Nelsinho Piquet Renault 30 +28 Laps 20
Ret 2 Felipe Massa Ferrari 29 +29 Laps 4
Ret 9 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 25 Accident 8
Ret 11 Jarno Trulli Toyota 19 Electrical 6
Ret 20 Adrian Sutil Force India-Ferrari 8 Hydraulics 22
Ret 10 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 0 Accident 14
Ret 16 Jenson Button Honda 0 Accident 12
Ret 19 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 0 Accident 21
Ret 15 Sebastian Vettel STR-Ferrari 0 Accident 9
Ret 21 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 0 Accident 16
DSQ 17 Rubens Barrichello Honda 58 +52.4 secs 10

***Note - Barrichello disqualified for exiting the pits under a red light.

Image courtesy :F1-Live.com

Table courtesy : formula1.com