Raikkonen wins, McLarens on the podium
Kimi Raikkonen offered no surprises to the public as he easily won the opening round of the F1 World Championship in Melbourne, Australia. The only reason why Hamilton didn’t finish second is because he caught traffic before his last pit stop, as the F1 analysts Flavio Gomes and Lionel Froissart notice.
-Kimi controlled the race. His fastest lap was a second faster that Alonso (2nd fastest man on track).
-The new Ferrari overalls for the drivers are gorgeous, with white on the side.
-Hamilton had an excellent race pace and showed that he arrived very well prepared at the start of the F1 season.
-Heidfled did well, Kubica as well, but BMW are better off finding a solution fast for their technical glitches.
-Fisichella was as always. A plus for him: keeping Massa behind him at the end.
-Felipe on a one stop strategy couldn’t do much more. He preferred not to force a move on Fisico even though he was considerably faster. Three points are better than nothing. We have to see if it does not accuse the blow to have come to Melbourne as favorite and to leave Australia seeing his teammate be successful.
-Rosberg and Ralf, the two final points scorers exceeded people’s expectations. Especially Ralf, whose team had a dismal preseason in testing.
Summary: Ferrari v McLaren will be the battle of the year. While 3 drivers were considered title contenders before Melbourne, Hamilton’s uninhibited debut made the experienced Gomes conclude that the Briton could be a title contender as well.
the start of the race was amazing for Hamilton. The way he passed Alonso took real balls. Amazing first race.
The other thing was the lack of pace by the renaults. Fisichella just looked totally flat… you know the car itself was not the problem. I wonder how long he will remain with the team.
carldec said this on March 18th, 2007 at 6:35 am