2008 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix

It’s a great start for 2008 Formula 1 season as the first race kicked off at Melbourne, Australia.

Lewis Hamilton capturing the pole position after the practice day had a perfect start along with Robert kubica in the first row and moved ahead over the very first corner.

While this corner was initial boost for some racers to move past others, it turned to be a disappointment for Giancarlo Fisichella representing the new entrant in racing circuit, Force India when he was pushed off the track by other cars moving wheel to wheel in their enthusiasm to overtake others soon after the race started.

Fisichella was not the only unfortunate one, even David Coulthard, 13 times champion was throw out of the race with broken suspension in an attempt to prevent Felipe Massa from over taking. Interestingly, Kimi Raikkonen and Massa (both from Ferrari) fell pray to the curiosity to overtake and were thrown out of the track. The main reason being the lack of Traction control as per the new rules which these veteran drivers have been used to. The new GP2 drivers took advantage over these new rules.

Kimi had a pretty good opening but lost control over the vehicle more than twice when tried wheel to wheel over corners and lack of traction control turned nightmare for him. Massa went wheel to wheel with David and when David didn’t give him enough space, it was the end of his race as

Massa rolled ahead. Massa dint have the laugh for too long as his race also struggled due to lack of traction control. Ferrari was put on the back foot when both their drivers struggled to remain till the end of the race. Toyota racer too had a disastrous end when the car hit the brake guard and flew over the track shattering pieces. Barrichello was also penalized for crashing a team member fuelling the car at the pitstop. At the end of 58 laps, only 9 out of 20 were finished the race.

If these were the mishaps during the race, it was Lewis Hamilton who had perfect start and remained the same till the end. It was not one time did he make a mistake and give an opportunity for the opponent. Fenando Alonso having had a bad position after practice came over the rest to 4^th position and proved again that it’s a Champions drive. Nick Heidfeld and Nico Rosberg maintained a similar strategy and moved ahead of their positions finishing at 2^nd and 3rd positions. Finally, it was Lewis Hamilton’s day at start of the season at Australian Grand Prix.