Nico Rosberg opened the season with a dominant victory in the Australian Grand Prix as his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, retired on lap three with engine problems. As expected the first race of the season was eventful with eight cars failing to finish due to the changes that we have seen from last season. Hamilton had a cylinder failing to fire from the start of the race and was down from pole position to fourth by the first corner. The previous world champion dropped down further to fifth after the first lap and was called into the pits shortly afterwards. Current World champion Sebastian Vettel also experienced engine troubles and retired a lap later than Hamilton with an engine failure. The early retirement from Hamilton left Rosberg out in front to drive to victory in what was clearly the most dominant car in the race.
The most surprising action of the day came from Riccairdo, who was able to complete a race distance in a Red Bull for the first time since January. Red Bull didn’t manage more than 20 laps in a row in pre-season testing. However, this was overshadowed by Riccairdo’s disqualification (six hours after the end of the race) due to a fuel-flow rate infringement, which promoted Kevin Magnussen into second. Magnussen beat his teammate, Jenson Button who made it into third place. Williams’ Valtteri Bottas finished fifth after hitting the wall on the exit of turn 10 and breaking a wheel, which meant there was a safety car period. Nico Hulkenberg started in fourth in the early stages, jumping from seventh on the grid, but slowly slipped down to finish sixth just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in seventh. The Toro Rossos took eighth and ninth places meaning that the Russian, Daniil Kvyat, has now replaced Vettel as the youngest points scorer in F1 history. Did you enjoy the first race of the season?