Another fantastic and interesting race, for many reasons!
A very competitive start
What an opening lap we had! Alonso tried to overtake Button in the first, second and third corners, but Button managed to hold on. The McLarens were racing as though the title depended on this result. I thought they were going to touch each other several times.
4 Safety car moments
1 - F.Massa incident.
2 - C.Klien smashing into the wall at turn 9
3 - M.Schumacher having a meeting with the wall!
4 - V.Liuzzi's spectacular crash into both sides of the track between turns 2 and 3.
Thankfully no one was hurt during these incidents, but it did damn well screw up Button's race time and time again.. Alonso overtook Button after the first Safety Car period was over, Raikkonen overtook him on the second, and several guys went past him on the third and fourth..
After the 4th restart, did you guys see the 'train' of cars coming up to turn 9?? There were about 7 or 8 cars covering a quite small amount of track. Three of them were side-by-side!!
We could have very easily had a 5th safety car situation there.
Button's bad luck
Everytime there was an incident which resulted in deployment of the Safety Car, Button lost a place right after it went in. His tryes simply didn't find any temperature for a few laps, which left him vulnerable to attack from Alonso, Raikkonen, Montoya, and so on.. To top it all off, his engine blew through the final few corners and Button retired about 100 yards from the finish line (although its thought he did this to avoid a 10 place grid penalty in San Marino). No points for Button and a miserable race day after qualifying first.
Commanding Alonso
Alonso cruised to victory, finishing just over 1.5 seconds ahead of Raikkonen. That lead is so misleading however. Each time the Safety Car was deployed Alonso lost the gap he'd pulled out, and if you add up the times he could have finished more than a minute ahead of anyone else had it not been for the incidents. Clearly Alonso was very dominant today. He now leads the Championship by 14 points ahead of Raikkonen and Fisichella, but nothing is anywhere near being decided yet!
Schumacher overtaken by Liuzzi!
LMAO!!!
This could be the highlight of the 2006 season. Schumacher was overtaken for position by a the former Minardi team, racing 4-5 seconds off the race pace of Alonso. Ferrari can certainly use the word 'back' to describe their season, but only if in terms of being going backwards.
I was disappointed that neither of the Williams cars made it to the end again, owing to bad luck.. They have such promise this season and I believe Webber may have been able to finish second had he completed all 57 Laps.
McLaren had another solid race, but problems for both Montoya and Raikkonen ensured that they didn't seriously challenge Alonso for the win. Fisichella had an off-day, BAR were constantly going backwards and the Ferrari drivers preferred to smash up their cars rather than race.
Toyota, BMW Sauber and Toro Rosso all impressed today! R.Schumacher scored Toyota's first points of 2006 and secured an impressive podium finish BMW Sauber had both cars in the points - with Heidfeld finished only 5 seconds away from a podium position. Toro Rosso almost picked up their first point of 2006. Speed crossed the line in 8th, but was later given a 25 second penalty for ignoring yellow flags. Still, he was able to hold off Coulthard. Liuzzi could have scored a point had he finished.
I have to put in a word for Super Aguri as well. Sato was running ahead of Barrichello, Coulthard and both Midlands for a fair amount of the first part of the race .. and he wasn't under pressure from them! Fantastic for a team that didn't exist 4 months ago.
3 weeks until Imola!
Australian GP Results Finishers
1. F.Alonso. 57 Laps
2. K.Raikkonen. +1.8s
3. R.Schumacher. +24.8s
4. N.Heidfeld. +31.0s
5. G.Fisichella. +38.4s
6. J.Villeneuve. +49.5s
7. R.Barrichello. +51.9s
8. D.Coulthard. +53.9s
9. J.Button. +1 Lap
10. C.Albers. +1 Lap
11. S.Speed. +1 Lap
12. T.Sato. +2 Laps
13. Y.Ide. +3 Laps
Retired
- J.P.Montoya. 46 Laps
- T.Monteiro. 39 Laps
- V.Liuzzi. 37 Laps
- M.Schumacher. 32 Laps
- M.Webber. 22 Laps
- C.KLien. 10 Laps
- N.Rosberg. 1 Lap
- J.Trulli. 6 Corners
- F.Massa. 1 Corner
Fastest Lap
K.Raikkonen - 1:26.045 (Lap 57)
Prediction League
Points Gained -
Lizzy - 16
Neil - 18
Gert-Jan - 16
Total Points After Australian GP
1. Neil. 61.
2. Gert-Jan. 47.
3. Lizzy. 40.
Its shame no one predicted with Villeneuve. Anyone who had placed him in their top 8 would have gained 2 bonus points! Predicting Albers to finish 8th would have picked you up 3 points (1 being a bonus point!).
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Gert-Jan Last night, I went to bed early, but when I woke up at 5.45am, I was like ... I want to sleep!  So I decided to do that. |
Quote:
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Originally Posted by ElectricStorm I watched it! Well... just like 10 minutes I had to go to work at 6.45 so I was awake anyway  |
I woke up at 4:55AM to the sound of my mobile phone alarm and wondered why the hell I was awake that early. Then I remembered the GP! After it had finished I was wide awake, but managed to go to sleep again and lie-in until midday.
This race was very much worth waking up for.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by ElectricStorm M.Schumacher out! I should predict that more often |
Please do!
Just to torture me. 
