The opening round of the 2016 FIA Formula 1 World Championship concluded with Nico Rosberg winning the Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne on Sunday ahead of Mercedes AMG F1 teammate Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.
Red Bull-Tag Heuer's Daniel Ricciardo fought to fourth place ahead of Williams-Mercedes' Felipe Massa. Haas-Ferrari's Romain Grosjean orchestrated a spectacular debut for the American F1 team by finishing sixth ahead of Force India-Mercedes' Nico Hulkenberg, Williams-Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas and the Toro Rosso-Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen.
At the start of the 57 lap race, the Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen surged past the front-row starting Mercedes cars of pole-sitter Hamilton and Rosberg. New F1 Start-line regulation changes of being allowed to use only one of the two steering-mounted clutch paddles spiced up the start of the race. Hamilton dropped back towards the tail of the top ten before slowly making his way up.
SCARE FOR ALONSO
The race was briefly red-flagged on account of a big crash between Haas-Ferrari's Esteban Gutierrez and McLaren-Honda's former two-time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso who seemed to misjudge his braking and couldn't avoid hitting the Mexican's car from behind despite trying to move to the outside.
Alonso's right front wheel hit the rear left wheel of Gutierrez, which made his car hit the barrier and slide into the gravel trap where the McLaren got dug in and flipped into the air before coming back down to a rest on another barrier.
The Spaniard crawled out of the car unhurt but visibly looking shaken up as Gutierrez walked over to check on him.
Following a brief red flag period, the race was restarted behind the safety car at which point Vettel, on super-soft tyres shot away from Rosberg who was on medium compound tyres but was unable to build the lead required to make the choice of using the softest compound work.
VETTEL'S CHALLENGE THWARTED
Rosberg stayed within striking distance and eventually closed to just 1.1 seconds behind Vettel by lap 35 at which point the German's Ferrari sped into the pits to change to the slightly harder soft compound tyres.
Defending world champion Hamilton's gradual progress through the field saw him pass Ricciardo's for second place on lap 40 as he drove the majority of the race on medium compound tyres to stay out of the pits as long as possible.
Vettel settled into third place behind Rosberg and Hamilton and tried to chase down the number 44 Mercedes in an effort to push the Mercedes cars to making another pit stop. His efforts paid off with Vettel right on the tail of Hamilton whose medium compound tyres finally started to give up on him after having completed nearly 40 laps on the same set. It allowed the former four-time world champion to close right on his tail.
However, a lock-up going into the penultimate corner on the second to last lap of the race ended any possible challenge to steal second place from Hamilton.
Sauber-Ferrari's Marcus Ericsson, Raikkonen, Manor-Mercedes' Rio Haryanto, Gutierrez, Alonso and Red Bull-Tag Heuer's Daniil Kvyat were the six drivers who failed to make it to the chequered flag.
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