15/03/2015
NEWS STORY
Reigning champion Lewis Hamilton made a perfect start to his title defence by beating his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg to record his second win in Australia and the 34th of his career. Both Mercedes drivers stopped once, starting on the soft tyre and then switching to the medium tyres on laps 25 and 26 respectively.
Hamilton started from pole position, having now converted his last seven pole positions into race victories, while Sebastian Vettel scored a podium on his Ferrari debut - also stopping once on lap 24 after starting on the soft tyre. The performance gains seen in Australia confirmed expectations for the 2015 season, for which Pirelli has developed a new rear tyre construction.
With wear and degradation extremely contained on the smooth Melbourne circuit, despite lap times that were in the region of two seconds faster than last year, most drivers adopted a one-stop strategy. This was prompted by an early safety car period that extended the length of the first stint, by minimising the energy going through the tyres, when the cars are at their heaviest.
Some drivers attempted a two-stop strategy, with the highest-placed two-stopper being Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson, who claimed eighth place in the closing stages. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was running close to the front on a two-stop strategy (which is theoretically about four seconds faster than a one-stop) before retiring from the race close to the finish.
Temperatures were cool (in the region of 20 degrees centigrade) with overcast conditions for the Australian Grand Prix, further extending tyre life and allowing the leaders to run within two seconds of each other for the majority of the race.
Paul Hembery: "As expected Australia was a tough race for the teams, but the tyres delivered everything that was asked. The cool conditions and early safety car period meant that the faster two-stop strategy turned into a one-stop for most of the competitors. As well as a top performance from the established frontrunners, we saw some extremely accomplished drives from the rookies this year, who have clearly got on top of the 2015 tyres and strategy options in a very short space of time."
Truth-O-Meter
We predicted a two-stopper as being the fastest strategy for the 58-lap race, but the early safety car period meant that most drivers converted to a one-stopper. We predicted the optimal time to change from soft to medium in this case as being lap 34. Hamilton made his sole pit stop on lap 24, able to benefit from the extra durability of the medium without compromising performance.
Check out our Sunday gallery, here.