Stunner At Albert Park: Bottas, Not Hamilton, Wins Australian Grand Prix

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Mercedes sweeps, Ferrari disappoints, Honda surprises.


MELBOURNE, Australia—March 17th: It might have been a bad omen for pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton. The pole-sitter has won only once in the last seven seasons. And on Sunday at the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, it happened again.

Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas, grabbed the race from the start. And with only a pit stop on lap 24 to break his lead, continued on to win the race over Hamilton by a huge 20.8-second gap.

Bottas, who has not won a race for his team since Abu Dhabi in 2017, was shocked afterward. “I do not know what just happened. I do not know what to say,” Bottas said.

Third place went to Max Verstappen in the Red Bull Honda, giving the Japanese engine company their first podium in the hybrid turbo era.

Bottas got a great start and continued the gap, starting with a 3.1-second gap on lap 10, to a 13.5 lead ten laps later. The Finn continued to increase his lead to 24 seconds with just 12 laps to go and ended up finishing the race four seconds less in front of Hamilton.

There were only three retirements in the race. Daniel Ricciardo tried to go wide to the right at the start and got his front wing caught in a dip in the grass, striking it, and tearing off the front wing. The home hero came back to the pits for a replacement, but could never get back in the race and retired on lap 31.

Hass F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean left the race one lap later. A bad front left side tire was not put well on the car, causing the suspension to fail. Carlos Sainz Jr. encountered an engine failure early in the race on lap 11.

Ferrari could never get into the race and had a disappointing weekend. Sebastian Vettel and Charles LeClerc finished fourth and fifth, respectively. The American Haas F1 Team had Kevin Magnussen take sixth.

The next four points positions were in a tense battle. Nico Hulkenberg led the group finishing seventh, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, Lance Stroll, and Dani Kvyat, who took eighth thru tenth, respectively.

When Bottas finally regained post-race composure, he realized that he had never before achieved this level of success. In addition to winning, he picked up an extra point for fastest lap of the race.

“The start was very good, and it was definitely my best race ever,” Bottas stated. “Everything was under control and I was good all day. It was really enjoyable. I am very happy and cannot wait until the next race.”

That race, which is two weeks away, will take place in Sakir, Bahrain.

About Mark Gero

Mark began his addiction to Formula 1 racing watching races on the television at Watkins Glen and attending Grand Prix races in person at Long Beach, California in the 1970s and early 80s. Turning to the journalism side of motorsports in 2001, Mark started by writing Grand Prix weekend stories for San Diego, California based All-Sports under Jerry Preeper. He left one year later for E-Sports in Florida. Mark’s big break came when he wrote for the late Mike Hollander at Racing Services. Then, in 2010, he joined Racingnation for three seasons. For the remaining part of this decade, Mark continued to advance, writing articles for the Munich Eye Newspaper in Munich, Germany, and returning to the U.S. to finish his degree in Journalism and Mass Communications at Ashford University. After graduating, Mark was hired by Autoweek before moving on to the racing website, Frontstretch, until late last year. Mark currently lives in Los Angeles, California.



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