Australian GP: Vettel storms to Melbourne win

Sebastian Vettel kicked off the new Formula 1 season by winning a captivating Australian Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton coming home second, after Mercedes were outfoxed on strategy.

Vettel's Ferrari kept on Hamilton's gearbox throughout the opening stint, and after the first, and only stops, Vettel emerged in the lead, after Hamilton was caught in traffic, and couldn't pass Red Bull's Max Verstappen. 

Towards the end, it looked as if Hamilton's second place was under threat from new team-mate Valtteri Bottas with the Finn rapidly closing in, before settling for a debut podium in third for the Silver Arrows. 

Kimi Raikkonen had a quiet race for Ferrari and came home fourth, ahead of Verstappen and Felipe Massa in the Williams.

Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz, Daniil Kvyat and Esteban Ocon completed the points scoring positions for Force India and Toro Rosso, in a race that saw just 13 finishers. 

Cat and mouse 

Even before lights out, there was drama as Daniel Ricciardo, hit with a five place penalty for changing his gearbox, ground to a halt on an install lap, and Kvyat had a small fire on the grid. There was also an aborted start which meant the race became a 57 lap event. 

At lights out, from pole Hamilton got a clean getaway, and him and Vettel began to ease away from the chasing pack, with the gap hovering at around 1.5s. 

The two began to trade sector times, with Vettel taking time out of the Brit, before he would duly respond, despite reporting a "lack of grip" on multiple occasions. 

Hamilton ended the game on lap 17 and dived for the pits, fitting the Soft tyres to his W08, but crucially emerging behind Verstappen. Despite being told he needed to pass the young Dutchman, Hamilton couldn't manage it and so Vettel was allowed to extend the gap between the two to the required 22 seconds for a pit-stop and when he emerged, he did so just ahead of Verstappen and Hamilton. 

Vettel, in clean air, began to escape and after Verstappen pitted, Hamilton's gap to make up was around 10 seconds, but he was unable to reel in the SF70-H, and allowed Vettel to claim a relatively untroubled 43rd career win, and first since Singapore 2015. 

Ricciardo's misery

To Red Bull's credit, they managed to fix Ricciardo's car and get him out, albeit two laps down, and he began to overtake some backmarkers, but eventually conked out with a engine failure at turn four having not made much progress. 

Whilst Ricciardo had a day to forget, Verstappen was flying late on after a switch to supersofts, and began to carve time out of Raikkonen, but the veteran Finn held on to claim fourth, and the race's fastest lap late on. 

Massa came home in a credible sixth place, ahead of Perez, who muscled his way past both Toro Rosso's during the race, including a great pass on the opening lap on Kvyat at turn 10. 

The Russian, who finally made the start in Australia pitted on lap 50 for an engine air refill, after the fire on the grid, and still came home to score a morale boosting two points, owing to his annus horribilis in 2016. 

Ocon scored his first ever point in F1 after a brief but explosive battle with Nico Hulkenberg's Renault and Fernando Alonso's McLaren. 

With just a handful of laps left, the Renault and Force India were rapidly closing in on the limping McLaren, with a suspension issue, and down the pit-straight, the three cars were inches apart, and to their credit, didn't touch, with Ocon coming home 10th. 

On debut, after being parachuted in on Saturday morning, Antonio Giovinazzi drove a fine race to come home 12th, ahead of the McLaren of Stoffel Vandoorne, who was the last classified finisher.

Retirements

There were seven DNF's in total, with Haas's promising Saturday turning into a nightmare Sunday, as Romain Grosjean had turbo failure on lap 15, and Kevin Magnussen's race ruined after a lap one crash with Sauber's Marcus Ericsson, who retired with a related hydraulic issue mid-way through the race. 

Jolyon Palmer suffered with brake issues on a torrid weekend, whilst Lance Stroll also had a brake issue which meant he retired late on after out-braking himself at turn 13, unable to stop. 

Alonso also parked the McLaren late on, after the suspension issue was deemed to be dangerous, but at least one McLaren had made the finish and the other had run in the points for a majority of the race.