Lewis Hamilton came home in P2 in Albert Park to claim his eighth Formula One podium finish in Australia and 118th career podium. Valtteri Bottas battled from P15 on the grid to claim P8 at the chequered flag.
Toto Wolff: This was one that got away and it's a bitter pill for us all to swallow. Following Lewis' pit stop, we believed that we had the scenarios of both the Safety Car and the Virtual Safety Car covered, so that Sebastian could not pit and come out ahead of Lewis on track. We should have been several seconds safe, then suddenly saw on the TV screens that we were not. Of course, under the VSC sometimes you benefit and sometimes you lose out - but it was clearly a problem on our side and we need to analyse that to understand what happened and correct it. It's all the more frustrating because we had the pace today to win. Lewis was in control through the opening stint, then after the pit stop as well, and looked on course for a strong victory but it wasn't to be. On Valtteri's side, we knew this would be a tough race to make up much ground. The margins between teams are closing up and this is one of the most difficult circuits to overtake on in the entire season. He made three passes on track, and benefited from the VSC too, but then was stuck in a DRS train in the final laps. Congratulations to Ferrari on their win today; for us, it's a tough one to take, but there are lots of lessons to be learned so we can come back stronger next time.
James Allison: Having come to Melbourne with high hopes, it will be a long journey home for us, knowing that we under-delivered as a team. The pace we saw during the weekend was promising for the season ahead but it counts for nothing if you don't handle correctly the cards that the race can deal to you - and, today, we didn't. We need to analyse our mistakes, correct them and we look forward to getting to the next race and starting to put things right.
Maurizio Arrivabene: A nice win and a great job from the team, both back in Maranello and here at the track, which led to a fine Sunday for all of us, our drivers and our fans. We have picked up a significant number of points in both the Drivers' and Constructors' championships. There is still a long way to go this season, but today we can be happy, knowing that each and everyone of us has done their very best, according to his role, to achieve this result. Now we will start to prepare for the next race, aware there is plenty to do; work which we will tackle with humility and determination.
Christian Horner, Team Principal: "A strong recovery from Daniel from P8 on the grid to P4 at a track that is incredibly difficult to pass on. I think the only pass of the entire grand prix was the one he made on Nico Hulkenberg. What we could see in the closing stages of the race was that he was pushing Kimi very hard and he had very good pace, demonstrated by posting the fastest lap, which is encouraging for the season ahead. Max's afternoon was a frustrating one for him. He made a good start initially but then got boxed in on the right hand side and dropped a place to the Haas. He picked up some damage to the floor on lap four or five that compromised the performance of his car quite significantly but he kept pushing and, despite a spin, was able to bring the car home in sixth place, having fought with Fernando for over 20 laps. He was always within a second but had no opportunity to overtake. We also saw some fantastic work from the pit crew, starting the 2018 season as they mean to go on and scoring the fastest pit-stop of the grand prix.
Sahara Force India completed today's Australian Grand Prix with Sergio Perez racing to P11 ahead of Esteban Ocon in P12.
Robert Fernley: "Ultimately we didn't have the pace this weekend to fight in the top ten and so we've ended our day on the cusp of the points. It's early days in the season and with twenty races to go there will be plenty of opportunities to develop this car and show our strengths. As I said yesterday, we're on a learning curve with the developments we introduced this weekend and there's more in the pipeline for Bahrain. Both drivers drove well today, but the luck didn't play into our hands with the timing of the safety car, for example. Following other cars closely was tough and Sergio was right on the tail of Sainz in the final few laps but there was no way to overtake. We will work hard to be stronger at the next race in Bahrain."
Lance Stroll finished 14th in the Australian Grand Prix, with Sergey Sirotkin retiring on his Formula One race debut. Both cars started on the supersoft Pirelli tyre, with Lance starting in 13th and Sergey 19th.
Lance lost a place to the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas early on whilst Sergey retired on lap four with a rear brake failure. Lance first pitted on lap 25 for a set of soft tyres.
The safety car was deployed on lap 28 when the Haas of Romain Grosjean stopped out on track, allowing Lance to make a second and final pitstop for ultrasoft tyres.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: That wasn't an afternoon to remember. Firstly, for Sergey, very early in the race he had a failure of the rear brakes. Our provisional analysis is that a plastic bag has been collected on the circuit, completely blocking the brake cooling, so that the right rear corner caught fire and eventually failed the hydraulics circuit. His brake pedal went to the floor and he had to go down the escape lane. That was the end of his race which is very unfortunate because it was his first F1 race and what he really needed to do was get some distance behind him so he could come back for the second event with race experience our objective, which we didn't achieve for him today. In Lance's case, we were struggling a lot with pace throughout the afternoon. Like a number of other teams, we're managing fuel consumption. Our fight was for 13th and unfortunately Lance lost the position to Leclerc under the safety car restart. He had a number of attempts to retake the position but with managing temperatures we had to drop back two or three times and we never made it stick.
Renault Sport Formula One Team opened up its 2018 account with both Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz finishing in the top ten in today's Australian Grand Prix.
Nico started from P7 on the grid and finished in that same position whilst Carlos started ninth and finished tenth. Both drivers ran to a one-stop strategy in a race where all the Renault-powered cars finished in the top ten.
Nico started the race from P7 on his qualifying Ultrasoft (purple) Pirelli tyres, pitting from P6 to change to a set of new Soft tyres on lap 24, rejoining the race in P10.
Carlos started the race from P9 on his qualifying Ultrasoft tyres pitting from P9 on lap 22 for a new set of Soft tyres, rejoining the race in P14.
Cyril Abiteboul, Managing Director: "It's a satisfying result, not perfect by any means, but it shows we're in line with our targets of making progress. Clearly, for a good result, everything must be smooth, from pit-stops to reliability and this double top-ten finish illustrates a solid start to the season. We're pleased with today and the result gives us something to build on. In the race, the safety car hurt us slightly, but that's racing and sometimes these things benefit you. Our focus on reliability has been illustrated with all Renault-powered cars finishing inside the top ten today, which is a good positive. We know it's going to be extra tight in the midfield battle, and that motivates us to keep working hard."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "As we had a successful test in Barcelona, we expected of course a much better race result in Melbourne, but for various reasons we couldn't get it together. For sure it didn't help that it was raining in FP3, because we would have needed a dry track to evaluate the tyres and to find out if our set up changes were going in the right direction. As for Qualifying, Brendon did a reasonable job but Pierre had a problem in Turn 3 so today we had to start from the back of the grid. Pierre had a good start and gained some positions, but unfortunately we faced a power unit issue that forced him to retire. As for Brendon, he locked the front tyres in braking for the first corner - he got a flat spot and we had to call him in to change the tyres and from then onwards he was at the back of the field. Now we can put behind a disappointing weekend - we have a lot of work to do to hopefully achieve a better result in Bahrain."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "It is disappointing that Pierre Gasly had to retire on lap 15 with an MGU-H problem. We now have to investigate the precise cause and then we have a few days of hard work to ensure we do not have a repeat of the problem at the next race.
"As for Brendon, after his early pit stop, because of a flat spotted tyre, he raced consistently, but with the difficulty of overtaking here he was unable to move up the order.
"It was a tough start to the season, however we have to move on from this and keep a positive frame of mind as we immediately start preparing for the second round of the championship."
It was a gut punch. After running fourth and fifth with 35 laps remaining in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix Sunday at Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean suffered separate retirements, jettisoning what was slated to be Haas F1 Team's strongest result in its still young history.
The speed displayed in winter testing at Circuit de Barcelona - Catalunya carried into Australia, where Magnussen qualified sixth to equal the American squad's best qualifying effort to date. Grosjean qualified right behind his teammate in seventh, and with Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo incurring a three-spot grid penalty, the Haas F1 Team duo moved up to fifth and sixth, locking out the third row.
The speed of the Haas VF-18 paired with the calculated aggressiveness of Magnussen and Grosjean paid off at the start.
Magnussen grabbed fourth place from Max Verstappen as he deftly overtook the Red Bull driver on the outside of turn one and then held the spot as they motored off the corner and into turn two. Grosjean, meanwhile, held steady in sixth.
Verstappen doggedly pursued Magnussen, but on lap 10 that pursuit sent Verstappen spinning off turn one. Magnussen drove away while Grosjean picked up the position, putting the Haas F1 Team drivers fourth and fifth with 48 laps to go.
The pressure from Red Bull was still on, however, as Verstappen's teammate, Ricciardo, was sixth, right in the tire tracks of Grosjean.
Soon, it was time for pit stops. Scuderia Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen opened the pit window when he stopped for service on lap 18.
Magnussen, having wrung all the performance remaining from the Pirelli P Zero Purple ultrasoft tires on which he qualified, pitted for a new set of Red supersofts on lap 22. But as he headed down the pit lane and ventured back onto the track, a frantic radio call came from the pits to Magnussen. "Stop the car! Stop the car immediately!" It was a loose wheel. Magnussen's day was over.
Grosjean pitted two laps later, as he also needed to exchange his ultrasofts for a new set of supersofts. Then a case of déjà vu after the stop, as a loose wheel forced him to stop on the racetrack.
Just like that, after being this close to the podium, Haas F1 Team's third appearance in the Australian Grand Prix ground to a halt. Grosjean was listed with a 16th-place finish and Magnussen was credited with a 17th-place finish.
Guenther Steiner: "It was a disappointing end to a very promising weekend. We had two failures on the pit stops - didn't tie the wheels on correctly, so we had to stop the cars. As much as you don't want to say it, it's racing. It happens, even though it shouldn't. It's almost unbelievable to have this in one race, and on two cars, while running fourth and fifth. It's very disappointing. The good thing we can take away from this is that the car is competitive. We just need to get our heads up again, to get well prepared for Bahrain. We'll focus on that one and get our pit stops sorted out."
An encouraging inaugural race of the season for McLaren and its new relationship with Renault. Both Fernando and Stoffel started the race one place ahead of their original qualifying spots thanks to Bottas' grid penalty, and made solid starts, narrowly avoiding any drama at turn one.
Both drivers drove a strong race, and a solid pit-stop for each under the Virtual Safety Car ensured Fernando and Stoffel maximised their respective strategies.
Race pace was promising, and gives the team optimism for the future. Despite strong advances from the cars around them, both Fernando and Stoffel could attack as well as defend their positions and maintain pace with the surrounding pack. Although the team benefitted from a couple of retirements further up the field, the drivers kept their heads down, stayed out of trouble, and enjoyed a clean race to cross the line in fifth and ninth positions respectively – a double points finish and a positive start to the season for the whole team.
Eric Boullier: "A good result for us today. We benefitted from every opportunity that was thrown at us – the first being Haas' double retirement. We really feel for them because we know what this is like; a double DNF is hard to take, but this is racing.
"As we said yesterday, we knew we had some potential and further speed to unlock from the car today. We took every chance we could and both drivers drove superbly. We showed good pace, enjoyed some good fights, and we completed two decent pit stops which helped us keep our strategy on track.
"I want to say a huge thank you to the whole team, here and back in Woking, not only because we're encouraged by the potential our car has shown in the first race of the season, but also reliability-wise we had a trouble-free weekend, which is a relief after the issues we had in winter testing. It's all thanks to a huge amount of hard work from everyone in the team, who have done a remarkable job since Barcelona.
"Now we need to keep pushing, and work on readying the upgrades we have in the pipeline as soon as possible. Our priority is to get closer to our nearest competitors in front, especially those who have the same engine in the back of their car."
The Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team showed progress throughout the weekend with the race looking promising as Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc lapped with good pace. Ericsson made a good start and had already gained one position to 16th when he had to retire on lap six due to a hydraulic issue on his car, which is now undergoing further investigation. On the other side of the garage, debut Formula 1 racer Charles Leclerc had a strong race during which he put in a consistent performance that enabled him to finish 13th. The Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team leaves Australia feeling positive and heading to Bahrain with confidence for the second round of the FIA Formula 1 Championship.
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal: "The balance of the whole race weekend is positive, especially considering the good progress we have made since Friday. Regarding the race we have mixed feelings because Marcus was doing an impressive job after a good start. We will now analyse all the data. Congratulations to Charles for his first race in Formula One. It was important for him to finish and he did a great job with tyre management and fuel saving. All in all, it's a good feeling for the team and we are very motivated as we look forward to Bahrain."
Pit stop strategy was central to the outcome of the Australian Grand Prix. Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel took advantage of a longer first stint to then make a pit stop under safety car conditions. This put him in first place, in front of Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who had led from pole and made his own stop in green flag conditions earlier in the race in response to an initial stop from Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.
The vast majority of drivers stopped just once, going from ultrasoft to soft, but a different strategy was used by Red Bull, with both drivers starting on supersoft before moving onto soft. Daniel Ricciardo ended up just off the podium in a close finish, despite a grid penalty.
Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas and McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne also used a different strategy, starting on the ultrasoft and finishing in the points on the supersoft.
Mario Isola: "There were effectively two halves to this grand prix, before and after the safety car, which helped to decide the outcome thanks to a clever pit strategy from Ferrari. In the end, we saw a very close race to the finish, with the top five places fiercely contested all the way to the final lap. Most drivers opted for a one-stop strategy, with the quite long safety car period mid-race also helping these tactics by minimising wear and degradation. The behaviour of all three compounds - each used as race tyres - was definitely positive. Two cars even finished the race on a one-stop strategy without using the hardest compound available."
