2013 Australian Grand Prix
The Australian Grand Prix 2013 ( officially 2013 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix Rolex ) took place on 17 March at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne instead and was the first race of the Formula 1 season 2013. Kimi Raikkonen ( Lotus - Renault) won the race ahead of Fernando Alonso (Ferrari ) and Sebastian Vettel ( Red Bull - Renault)
- 3.1 qualifying
- 3.2 race
- 4.1 Drivers' Championship
- 4.2 Constructors' Championship
Reports
Background
The Australian Grand Prix 2013 was the first Formula 1 Grand Prix, which was held in the 32- year history of the Concorde Agreement without a valid or accepted agreement. Although existed once from 2008 to mid-2009 is not a valid Concorde Agreement, however, the teams continued to hold to the previously valid. The negotiations on a new Concorde Agreement in 2013 was already far advanced at the time of the race weekend.
At the Grand Prix of Australia presented Pirelli riders the tire compounds P Zero medium ( white) and P Zero Supersoft ( red) and for wet conditions Cinturato Intermediates (green) and Cinturato Full Wets (blue ) are available.
Valtteri Bottas ( Williams), Jules Bianchi ( Marussia ), Max Chilton ( Marussia ), Giedo van der Garde ( Caterham ) and Esteban Gutierrez ( Sauber) debuted at this Grand Prix in Formula 1 Lewis Hamilton ( Mercedes), Nico Hulkenberg ( Sauber), Sergio Pérez ( McLaren) and Charles Pic ( Caterham ) started for the first time for their new teams. Adrian Sutil ( Force India ) denied after 476 days break again a Formula 1 Grand Prix.
With Jenson Button (three times), Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel ( once each ) were five former winners of this Grand Prix.
As race stewards acted Steve Chopping (AUS ), Paul Gutjahr (SUI ), Vincenzo Spano ( VEN) and Danny Sullivan (USA).
Use stickers on his helmet Felipe Massa recalled at the Grand Prix to the recently deceased Wilson Fittipaldi sr. , The father of Formula 1 racing driver Emerson and Wilson. Massa is a friend of the family Fittipaldi.
Training
In the first free practice Vettel scored the first fastest time of the season in front of the Ferrari drivers Massa and Alonso with slightly overcast sky, but a dry track. In the second free practice Vettel stayed ahead. In second place his team -mate Mark Webber followed before Nico Rosberg. In this training Rosberg rolled shortly before the end of the session from the suspected transmission damage. Hamilton and van der Garde slid into the gravel, which also finished their training prematurely.
In the third free practice session on Saturday morning it started to rain after 16 minutes, so an improvement in the times achieved was no longer possible. In the course of training, all four types of tires were used. Romain Grosjean scored the pole position on trockenenem course and was also on the wet track the fastest. Alonso finished second, Massa third. In the rain Gutiérrez scored the second fastest time ahead of Jean - Éric Vergne. Vettel put his vehicle with a failure of the electronics from the edge of the track. Rosberg's KERS was not working properly, so he could use it only briefly.
Qualifying
The start of the qualifying session was postponed by 30 minutes behind, because the track was too wet. The driver started the full- Wets and changed the end to intermediates. On the wet track some drivers underwent errors. Van der Garde slipped in the initial phase off the track and lost his front wing. Hamilton turned and hit his tail in the limit, where he rear wing is slightly damaged. Massa spun and struck the front into the tire barrier, but he damaged his front wing. All went on and had their vehicles repaired again. Shortly before the end of the section damaged Pic and Gutiérrez their vehicles by Dreher and sparked yellow phases. Rosberg finally achieved the fastest time in the first segment. The Caterham and Marussia pilots and Gutiérrez and Pastor Maldonado retired from. Pic failed, moreover, to the 107- percent rule and did not qualify for the Grand Prix. However, he was subsequently admitted to the start of the Grand Prix, as he lay in every free practice within the 107 percent. Due to the revival of rain, the second segment was initially postponed for 50 minutes back and then completely canceled for Saturday. The second and third part of qualifying was postponed to Sunday morning at 11 clock local time.
On Sunday morning Rosberg scored in the second segment on a drying track with the fastest lap Intermediates. The Toro Rosso drivers and Botta, Perez, Sutil and Hulkenberg stepped down from. In the third section, we dried off continue, so that the pilots drove their fastest lap on slicks. Vettel scoring the first pole position of the season ahead of team mate Webber and Hamilton. Hamilton was the only driver in the top 10, which did not go as last year for the same team in 2013.
Vettel commented on the pole position as follows: "I 'm obviously happy with the result, but because of the revised timetable, we must not be too euphoric. In a few hours the race starts, because we need to put us back on the seat of your pants. It is a very good result for me and the team, with Mark in second place we have the entire first series for us -. A surprise after we did not know where we stood in winter testing "
Thus, the decision on the starting grid for the first time fell in Formula 1 history outside of Japan and for the third time on a Sunday. The last time the starting grid at the Grand Prix of Japan in 2010 was determined on Sunday.
Race
Even before opening the pit lane for the weekend Sauber driver Hulkenberg was finished. At its vehicle a fault was discovered in the fuel system. The team therefore decided to not use the vehicle for safety reasons in the race. Hulkenberg called the start waiver as "extremely frustrating ." In Hülkenberg teammates Gutiérrez there was this difficulty does not, so he took part in the Grand Prix schedule. The other vehicles did not advance after the grid.
At the start Vettel held the lead and broke away right at the top. Webber started from position two not so good and dropped back to seventh place. He explained after the race that his KERS did not work in the first 20 rounds. Both Ferrari had good starts. Massa went from fourth to two, Alonso from five to three. Hamilton and Raikkonen completed the first five after the first round. In the second round Alonso tried to drive past his teammate Massa. However Massa defended himself, claiming the position. Massa drove shortly after the then fastest lap and took on the leading Vettel. Behind the Ferrari drivers it came in the second round to a position exchange between Hamilton and Räikkönen.
Already in the fourth round of the phase of the first regular pit stops began. The trigger for this was that the durability of the tire compound Supersoft was very short. Raikkonen, Vettel and Ferrari drivers were in front of the Mercedes drivers to the pits and changed to medium, so Hamilton and Rosberg, meanwhile spearheaded the race. Behind them lay Sutil and Perez, who had started from the top 10 with the medium tire compound the race as opposed to the pilot. While Pérez soon fell back behind Vettel and Ferrari drivers, Sutil maintained his position. After the Mercedes drivers had also been in the pits and medium tires had reared, Sutil was in the lead. Sutil led for the first time in a Formula 1 Grand Prix. In the meantime, there were at the end of the field a collision between Chilton and van der Garde, in which Chilton damaged his front wing. He went on to a repair stop.
Before Sutil came to the pits for the first time, he succeeded on the second-placed Vettel, who had fresher tires to increase their lead. In lap 19 Alonso went for the second time to the box. Originally a later stop by Alonso had been planned, but Alonso opted for a stop in this round. One lap later, Sutil and Vettel pitted. Alonso managed to drive past by the previous pit stop at both. Vettel overtook Sutil little later. However Massa led the race for two laps, but was then summoned also to the box. After the race, Massa described the later compared to Alonso pit stop error. All pilots remained in the medium tire compound. While Räikkönen stayed out longer and led the race in front of the Mercedes drivers, the Grand Prix was stopped for Maldonado after a mistake at the first corner. Maldonado spun into the gravel and did not come out. Shortly after Rosberg rolled out with an electronic defect. Rosberg described after the race that the failure had announced several rounds.
During light rain, which did not affect the track conditions started, attacked Alonso Hamilton. Hamilton tried to defend his position. He locked up under braking and lost the position to Alonso. As his tires were affected, he went soon after for the second time to the box. A little later, also went the other pilots from the top group, except Sutil, to the box. Raikkonen for second, Alonso, Massa and Vettel for the third time. All pilots remained on the Medium tires. Räikkönen remained in this group with a larger lead over Alonso, Vettel and Massa, while Sutil led the race again.
In the 42nd round of Hamilton went for the third time to the box. Originally had planned a two stop strategy Hamilton and Mercedes. Shortly afterwards overtook Raikkonen Sutil and took over the leadership of the Grand Prix. At the same time, Webber went past with a firm maneuver at di Resta. Sutil drove a little later for the second time to the box and moved to the mixture Supersoft, he had not been used before. In the meantime, Daniel Ricciardo had finished the race with a loss at the exhaust of the box.
In the final phase, the positions remained virtually unchanged. Sutil had trouble with the super soft tire compound and fell back. He explained after the race that these tires were " completely broken " with him after two rounds. He was overtaken by Hamilton and Webber and teammate joined him on. However, an internal team overtaking it no longer existed. Two laps from the end of the race Räikkönen scored while leading the fastest race lap. At the end of the field it came in the closing stages to an overtaking maneuver by Chilton against van der Garde.
Räikkönen eventually won the season opener in front of Alonso and Vettel. Thus there were three Formula 1 World Champion on the podium. Massa was fourth ahead of Hamilton, Webber, Sutil and di Resta. Last year's winner Button was ninth, tenth Grosjean. Best debutant Gutiérrez was in 13th place. All newcomers reached the goal in the season opener.
McLaren, the courts nine (Button) and eleven ( Pérez ) finished the race, had a weak start to the season compared to the performance in previous years. In the back field succeeded Marussia to let Caterham behind. Bianchi, who was the 15th best pilot in the rear two teams in the race within this group showed a dominant performance.
With his 20th victory Raikkonen leads for the first time in May 2008 again at the World Cup. In addition, he drew equal with the number of victory with his fellow countryman Mika Hakkinen and is now with him the Finn with most Formula 1 victories. Raikkonen himself described the race as one of the simpler races he won. In the constructors' world championship lead so went to Ferrari in front of Lotus -Renault and Red Bull -Renault.
The 68th consecutive race winless Massa became the first Ferrari driver, who remained more than 67 Grand Prix without a win.
Comments of the first three riders
"I am for the team and for myself happy. We had the whole weekend a fast car, and there were no problems with it. We could therefore simply focus on trying different things and the setup to get it where we wanted it to be. I had a good feeling after the workout that we would cope well with the tires, and the team still knows how the strategy perfectly. I made up a few places at the start, then had a good battle with Lewis Hamilton. After that it was fairly simple, perhaps one of my simpler victories. It is the season did not start much better than winning the first race, and of course we hope we can fight at the top of the Championship. But there is still a long way to go, and we need to make to him all the time about the pressure. "
"We can say that we got up this season on the right foot. We fight from the start with the best. Together with the results of winter testing, this is a very encouraging sign that we have managed to make the most of a weekend that was full of unknown factors, both in qualifying and in the race. I believe that the three- stop strategy was the right one. Given the wear, with which we had to do it, it would have been impossible with a stop thrifty less. By preferring the second stop for a few laps, I was able to go past Vettel and Sutil. The fact that we have come to finish ahead of the Red Bull, like a victory feels like, even if we know that they are still the fastest in spite of today's race result. Now we can expect another weekend with very changeable weather, and this is also from a mechanical point of view, the cars and, viewed from the physical point of view, the drivers under a lot of stress. But after this good result, we can take it easy so now. "
"I think one is always a little disappointed when you first start but does not come first to the finish. Nevertheless it was a good weekend for us on the whole. We had poles and podium a good day today - but in the race we went a little too aggressively for our tires. Front and rear tires went quickly into the knee, the other did you manage a little better. There are always areas where you can improve, but the result we have retracted today, this been going fine. We have not seen Kimi on the track, because he was just too fast, and Fernando has overtaken us in a very vulnerable time. All in all we can with the third place but be satisfied. "
Message list
Classifications
Qualifying
Race
WM stands after the race
, The first ten of the race were 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 point (s).