Summary:
- Bottas begins 2019 season with victory, first since Abu Dhabi in 2017
- Hamilton finishes second to make it Mercedes 1-2
- Verstappen finishes third after brilliant overtake on Vettel
- Home boy Ricciardo, Sainz and Grosjean all retire from race
The 2019 Formula 1 season has officially begun with the opening race of the season in Melbourne, where Valtteri Bottas came out on top after taking the lead on lap 1 of the race thanks to a brilliant start. Bottas' team-mate Lewis Hamilton finished second to make it an ideal start for the team, whilst Verstappen achieved his first ever podium finish for Red Bull in Melbourne with a very good drive. Valtteri Bottas claimed the bonus point for setting fastest lap of the race.
At the start, Bottas got away brilliantly from second place and led going into turn 1, whilst Hamilton arguably had a sub-optimal start but kept second position. Daniel Ricciardo hit a nasty bump just before the start/finish line which caused him to lose his front wing, besides further other damage to the car. Also, Robert Kubica hit the rear of Pierre Gasly's Red Bull which meant the Pole also pitted on the opening lap due to damage. At the end of the first lap, the top 5 were: Bottas, Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.
On around lap 10 of the race Leclerc ran wide going into turn 1 and went onto the grass, which caused to him to lose considerable time. Carlos Sainz, who was making his debut for McLaren, was the first driver of the season to retire as his car began to catch fire - there was no real harm done to Sainz and it was reportedly due to an MGU-K failure.
Vettel was the first of the frontrunners to pit on lap 15 in order to try and attempt to re-emerge in front of the Mercedes drivers after his pitstop. In response to this, Mercedes to decided to pit Hamilton on the following lap and Hamilton re-emerged ahead of Vettel. At this point, the order was: Bottas, Verstappen, Leclerc (none of whom had stopped just yet), Hamilton and Vettel. Further down the order, Grosjean had an issue getting one of his tyres put on and it caused him to lose several positions.
Bottas was the next of the frontrunners to make his pitstop, and he was so far ahead that he was able to re-emerge ahead of even Leclerc who had yet to make his own stop. Now Verstappen was leading the race (having not made his pitstop yet), before stopping just a couple of laps after Bottas. The order at this point was now: Bottas, Leclerc (who was yet to make his pitstop), Hamilton, Vettel and Verstappen. Leclerc was the last of the frontrunners to pit and he interestingly decide to switch onto the hard tyres rather than the medium tyres the rest of the frontrunners put on.
Further down the order, Daniil Kvyat was able to overtake both Lando Norris and Romain Grosjean who ended up getting stuck behind Antonio Giovinazzi, whilst Lance Stroll was also able to jump into the points-scoring positions after stopping later on in the race.
Verstappen re-emerged from his stop roughly 3.5s behind Vettel, and thanks to a combination of fresher tyres and ultimately slower pace from the Ferrari, Verstappen was able to leapfrog Vettel into third place with a brilliant overtake around the outside of turn 3. In the meantime, both Ricciardo and Grosjean retired from the race - one with damage from that incident at start, and the latter due to a loose front tyre.
Pierre Gasly, who started the race down in 17th place, went for a long opening stint on medium tyres before then switching onto the soft tyres, and was able to re-emerge from his pitstop in 10th place, but was quickly overtaken by Daniil Kvyat who had warmer tyres.
Up at the front, an interesting battle for fastest lap times started to develop, most notably between Verstappen and Bottas, a battle which ultimately Bottas won after he set a fastest lap of 1:25.580. In the end, there was just no stopping Valtteri Bottas who won the race by a comfortable margin of 20.8s. Verstappen tried to overtake Hamilton, but did not succeed and so had to settle for third place, with Hamilton finishing second place. Mercedes later revealed after the race that Hamilton was carrying floor damage, the cause of it still unknown however. Leclerc had an impressive final part of the race and closed down Vettel rapidly, but was bizarrely given team orders not to attempt an overtake on the German.
Classification:
Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
Max Verstappen - Red Bull Racing-Honda
Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari
Charles Leclerc - Ferrari
Kevin Magnussen - Haas-Ferrari
Nico Hulkenberg - Renault
Kimi Raikkonen - Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari
Lance Stroll - Racing Point-BWT Mercedes
Daniil Kvyat - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Pierre Gasly - Red Bull Racing-Honda
Lando Norris - McLaren-Renault
Alexander Albon - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Antonio Giovinazzi - Racing Point-BWT Mercedes
George Russell - Williams-Mercedes
Robert Kubica - Williams-Mercedes
Did not finish the race and not classified: Romain Grosjean (Haas-Ferrari), Daniel Ricciardo (Renault) and Carlos Sainz (McLaren-Renault)
World Championship classification:
Valtteri Bottas - 26 points
Lewis Hamilton - 18 points
Max Verstappen - 15 points
Sebastian Vettel - 12 points
Charles Leclerc - 10 points
Kevin Magnussen - 8 points
Nico Hulkenberg - 6 points
Kimi Raikkonen - 4 points
Lance Stroll - 2 points
Daniil Kvyat - 1 point
Pierre Gasly - 0 points
Lando Norris - 0 points
Sergio Perez - 0 points
Alexander Albon - 0 points
Antonio Giovinazzi - 0 points
George Russell - 0 points
Robert Kubica - 0 points
Constructors' Championship classification:
Mercedes - 44 points
Ferrari - 22 points
Red Bull Racing-Honda - 15 points
Haas-Ferrari - 8 points
Renault - 6 points
Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari - 4 points
Racing Point-BWT Mercedes - 2 points
Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda - 1 point
McLaren-Renault - 0 points
Williams-Mercedes - 0 points