Over the weekend the Australian Grand Prix took place in Melbourne and it looked to be the same old story with Mercedes finishing first and second however that does not tell the whole story.
Qualifying used a new format with cars setting times as normal until half way through the session when every 90 seconds the slowest car would be eliminated no matter where they were on the track. This changed at the end of the session when all cars still running could finish their timed lap.
This led to the sight of drivers out of their cars at the end of Q3 with 3 minutes still to go whith nothing on the track. Not the exciting spectacle that the FIA wanted!
At the end of this rather farcical event the Mercedes of Hamilton was on pole, his 50th career pole putting him on the same level as Senna and Schumacher. Rosberg, Vettel, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Massa, Sainz and Ricciardo made up the rest of the top 9 with the Ferrari's looking fast and much closer to the Mercedes than recently.
Changes to the rules have made getting of the line at the start harder as only 1 lever is allowed to operate the clutch so no second lever to lock the clutch just at the biting point for a quick start.
This saw its first victim in Hamilon who made a really bad start and dropped back, losing further momentum when Rosberg mucked up the first corner.
So at the end of the first lap it was The Ferrari's in the lead with Vettel leading Raikkonen then the Merceds of Rosberg then Verstappen and Massa followed by the recovering Hamilton.
Over the race Hamilton made a rather good recovery drive to unltimately follow his team mate home just in front of Vettel and Ricciardo with Massa, Grosjean, Hulkenburg, Bottas, Sainz and Verstappen making up the points finishers.
So it was Mercedes 1 and 2, Ferrari 3rd, Red Bull 4th, Williams 5th, Haas 6th (on their debut), Force India 7th, Williams 8th and Toro Rosso 9th and 10th.
Despite McLaren looking much faster Button only managed to finish 14th with Alonso out after a huge crash when he hit the back of the Haas of Guitierrez.
In all it was an interesting race with plenty of racing and Ferrari resurgent and only let down by an overly aggressive tyre stratergy that saw Vettel losing the lead when he needed to pit for tyres late in the race.
As long as they sort out qualifying this season is shaping up to be quite good.
