Once Vettel emerged from his pit-stop, Verstappen attempted to pass him but was unable to do so while Hamilton remained stuck behind the Dutchman.įollowing the tyre stop, Hamilton's new teammate Valtteri Bottas was able to close the gap that Hamilton had opened up to him prior to it.
The German chose to stay out for six laps more on the softest available set of tyres that most of the front runners had started on before they switched to the hardest compound available to run till the end of the 302km race that saw an aborted start and a second formation lap before finally getting underway. Vettel and Ferrari kept the gap to the Hamilton, who led from the start, to around 1.5 seconds until Hamilton lapped on lap 20 of the race. The win was the first for either Vettel or Ferrari since the 2015 Singapore Grand Prix as the team went all of 2016 without winning a single race. Running pole-sitter Hamilton close at the start, staying out longer before the solitary pit-stop of the 57 lap race and benefitting from Hamilton being stuck behind Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen led to Vettel securing the 43rd win of his F1 career and gave Ferrari a win that was more down to pace than pure optimism, as compared to Vettel's first win with the Scuderia in Malaysia in 2015. Ferrari and former four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel delivered on the promise they showed in winter testing by winning the season opening Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne's 5.303km, 16-turn Albert Park Circuit.
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