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Both Ferrari drivers
finished in the points – fourth place for Fernando
Alonso and seventh for Felipe Massa – in the
Australian Grand Prix this afternoon. However, it’s fair
to say the team had hoped for better at the time they
packed up the equipment in Barcelona after the last test
of the winter. Effectively, yesterday’s disappointment
in qualifying, with the Spaniard securing fifth place on
the grid and the Brazilian eighth, meant that today’s 58
lap race was always going to be tough. The two men had
contrasting fortunes: while Massa made a great start,
moving up to fifth on the opening lap, before later
slipping down the order, Alonso had a poor start, pushed
wide at the first turn and dropping to ninth, before
staging a great climb back up the order. Felipe had the
consolation of setting the fastest lap of the race. The
Scuderia picked up a total of 14 points which could
prove very valuable later in the season, even if at the
moment it is only enough to put Ferrari in third place
in the Constructors’ championship.
Sebastian Vettel won in the dominant Red Bull, starting
from pole and he was never troubled. He was joined on
the podium by Lewis Hamilton for McLaren and Vitaly
Petrov, who got his first ever top three finish by
moving from sixth to third with a super start in the
Lotus Renault. Massa was at the heart of the race
action, having a truly thrilling duel for fifth place,
holding off Jenson Button in what was effectively the
first Downforce Reduction System battle ever seen in F1,
not forgetting the KERS of course. Alonso moved up to
seventh and was closing on his team-mate and the McLaren
man and on lap 11, both the Spaniard and the Englishman
got past the Brazilian, but the McLaren driver was given
a drive-through penalty for cutting a corner to achieve
the move.
Webber started the first run of pit stops on lap 11,
with Fernando coming in one lap later, with Massa
changing tyres on lap 13. As others pitted they moved up
to fifth and sixth places, with Vettel still leading
from Hamilton, Webber and Petrov. Webber made a second
stop on lap 26, Fernando coming in on 27 and Felipe on
31. With the leading trio yet to make a second stop,
clearly Button and the two Ferrari men were going to
have their possibilities blunted by the need to make a
third tyre change, in the case of Fernando on lap 42,
with Felipe coming in ten laps from the end.
Fernando closed on fourth placed Webber, but could not
find a way past the Red Bull until the Australian pitted
one lap earlier than the Ferrari. With his tyres
suffering, Felipe could not hold off Button who took
sixth place from him on lap 48 and the Brazilian dropped
to tenth when he had to take on a third set of tyres.
With new rubber, Felipe was flying, passing Buemi to go
ninth after another thrilling battle and setting the
fastest lap of the race just three laps from the flag.
Behind the podium trio, the remaining points went to
Fernando, Webber and Button sixth. An impressive Sergio
Perez finished seventh in his Formula 1 debut, all the
more amazing as he made just a single pit stop, while
his team-mate Kobayashi was eighth in the Ferrari
powered Sauber, Felipe was ninth and Buemi tenth, also
running a Ferrari engine in his Toro Rosso, making it
five Prancing Horse engines in the top ten.
However following post
race scrutineering, the two Saubers of Perez and
Kobayashi were disqualified because of a technical
irregularity linked to the rear wing. This meant that
Massa moved up from ninth to seventh in the
classification, thus bringing home an additional four
points, which moves Ferrari up to third place in the
Constructors’ Championship. The Formula 1 circus will be
back in action in a fortnight’s time, on 10 April, at
the Sepang circuit in Malaysia.
Stefano
Domenicali: “There is no
point in denying that we leave Australia with a sense of
disappointment. Again today, our performance level was
not a match for that of the best, especially one of the
Red Bulls. Nevertheless, we managed to pick up some
valuable points, especially with Fernando, who drove a
great race, recovering from what happened to him on the
first lap. Having made a strong start, Felipe first
defended himself with real determination against attacks
from Button, but then in the second part of the race he
suffered more than expected with overheating rear tyres.
Now we will have to study everything carefully to work
out what prevented us from being as competitive as we
had expected this weekend. Then we will have to react
immediately, starting with the next race in Malaysia.
One of the main themes is the level of downforce at the
front: we must find out why we did not get on track what
was predicted by the data. One of the few bright points
was reliability, especially on the engine side and with
the KERS.”
Fernando Alonso: “If you just look at
the classification, this is not such a bad result; yes
we have lost ground to Vettel and Hamilton, although we
have done better than Webber and Button. Here at Albert
Park, it seems that I have a season ticket for fourth
place, as it’s the third time in four years that I’ve
finished the race in this position. Last year, we came
here off the back of the win in Bahrain, which means
that the same result then had a very different feel to
it. Once again today, Vettel seemed to be on another
planet, while the others were a bit closer, not to the
extent they were on Friday, but at least not as far off
as in qualifying yesterday. Finishing behind Petrov
again like in Abu Dhabi? True, but it’s a coincidence
and then, at this stage it is more satisfying to have
managed to keep Webber behind me, who I reckon will be a
more serious rival in the title fight than the Russian.
KERS worked well as did the moveable rear wing, although
it did not make the overtaking moves that easy. At the
start there was a bit of confusion: I got away well, but
then Button headed for me and I had to go wide to avoid
a collision. The strategy was just right and it helped
me to make up some places. Maybe if I hadn’t ended up
immediately in traffic, I could have tried to go for two
stops but given how things went, we made the best
decision. We are in the right zone for us to be able to
win a title, but definitely not if we keep finishing
third or fourth. We have to improve, we know that, but
it’s still too early to make any predictions.”
Felipe Massa: “At the start things got
off on the right foot with a nice start and good
defending from Button’s attacking moves. Then we tried
to bring forward the use of the hard tyres, but that
move did not pay off and we had to make the third stop
towards the end, which lost me a few places. In the
second part, I suffered a lot with degradation on the
rear tyres and I could not keep up a good pace. New
elements such as the rear wing worked as they should: we
definitely saw more overtaking than last year. The duel
with Button? It was very tight: when he passed me,
cutting the chicane, I expected him to be penalised. I
am a bit disappointed with the result and the overall
performance this weekend. We have to get down to work to
understand fully what happened, because I think we have
not shown our true potential.”
Pat Fry: “We have a lot of work ahead
of us, that’s for sure. This weekend, the 150° Italia
was not as competitive as we would have liked and that’s
a fact: both in the race and in qualifying, Red Bull and
McLaren were quicker than us. In terms of how we managed
our strategy, I think that with Fernando we made the
right choices, given what happened on the opening lap,
when he found himself back in ninth place. Thanks to the
pit stops and some good passing moves, the Spaniard
managed to move up the order to fourth and he was
fighting for a podium finish right up to the final lap.
However, with Felipe we probably made a mistake towards
the end, which cost him maybe one place. Now we all have
to roll our sleeves up, at the track and back home, to
try and arrive in Malaysia in better shape.”
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