Valtteri Bottas upstaged his Mercedes world champion team-mate Lewis Hamilton to blitz the field and win the 2019 season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix in a dominated performance.
The flying Finn started second on the grid but got a jump on the polesitting Briton at the first corner and never looked back, scorching round the Albert Park circuit to take the chequered flag a massive 20.9 seconds ahead of Hamilton to earn his first Formula 1 win since 2017.
Red Bull's precocious Max Verstappen came third to join them on the podium after audaciously overtaking Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel midway through the Australian race.
Verstappen claimed Honda's first podium finish since the 2008 British GP in its maiden race with Red Bull as Ferrari ended up only fourth and fifth.
Four-time world champion Vettel had to settle for fourth, trailing in 57.1 seconds behind Bottas. Ferrari partner Charles Leclerc was fifth, with Kevin Magnussen in a Haas sixth.
"How about that! Yes!" said Bottas over the team radio after also taking the new bonus point for the fastest lap of the race. "Thank you guys."
A one minute's silence was held before the race to remember F1 director Charlie Whiting, who died on Thursday
Whiting, one of the most influential people in the sport, suffered a pulmonary embolism on Thursday morning in Melbourne at aged 66.
He was due to officiate this weekend's 2019 season-opening Australian GP.
Whiting was head of Formula 1 for motorsport's governing body the FIA, the official race starter and he oversaw all rules matters in Formula 1.
The Englishman had worked for the FIA since 1988 having initially joined as technical director.
He was previously chief mechanic and then chief engineer of former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team, which won world championships in 1981 and 1983.
Whiting began his F1 career with the Hesketh team in 1977, moving to Brabham for 1978 and staying there until he joined the FIA, where he had been a central part of the organisation's running of F1 ever since.
No comments:
Post a Comment