2007 Australian Grand Prix

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  2007 Australian Grand Prix

Race details
Race 1 of 17 in the 2007 Formula One season.
Date	March 18, 2007
Official name	LXXII ING Australian Grand Prix
Location	Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, Melbourne, Australia
Course	Temporary street circuit 3.295 mi / 5.303 km
Distance	58 laps, 191.12 mi / 307.574 km
Weather	Clear
Pole
Driver	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari
Time	1:26.072
Fastest Lap
Driver	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari
Time	1:25.235 (on lap 41 of 58)
Podium
First	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari
Second	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes
Third	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes

The 2007 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on March 18, 2007 at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit. It was the 1st race of the 2007 Formula One season.

[edit] Report

[edit] Pre-Race

The morning session of Friday practice, played out in wet weather, saw McLaren's Fernando Alonso take the fastest lap of the session, over a second faster than the next fastest time set by Ferrari's Felipe Massa. The rain dried up for the afternoon session which saw the two Ferrari's of Massa and Kimi Räikkönen first and second respectively with the fastest non-Ferrari driver, Lewis Hamilton, just under a tenth of a second behind Räikkönen. The rest of the top six were from different teams with fourth place going to Giancarlo Fisichella of Renault, Nick Heidfeld in the BMW Sauber was fifth and Alex Wurz's Williams completed the top six. "This was a positive start to the weekend" Massa commented, "but of course what counts is tomorrow’s qualifying and most of all, Sunday’s race."^[1]

The morning session of Saturday, however brought with it sunny skies, which, upon the commencement of the session, brought a light drizzle. This forced teams who went out early to use their wet tires. Fortunately for the teams, the drizzle was a light one, and what little water that was on the track, dried up quickly enough to have no effect on any racer on dry tires. Räikkönen was the consistent pace-setter and topped the chart with a 1:26.064. Fisichella managed to push his Renault to second with a time of 1:26.454. Rookie, Lewis Hamilton came third over his double and defending World Champion Fernando Alonso who came in at 7th. Another surprise package was Super Aguri, with Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato getting within the top ten with 4th and 10th respectively. Felipe Massa and Nick Heidfeld completed the top six.

[edit] Qualifying

[edit] Part 1

Räikkönen followed up his pace-setting morning practice performance by topping the times in Part One of the qualifying session. Mark Webber set the early benchmark with a 1:27.799, but Lewis Hamilton knocked one and one tenths off that, with a lap of 1:26.674 – his personal fastest lap of the meeting, before Räikkönen took control. However, along with the Toro Rossos and the Spykers, Rubens Barrichello and David Coulthard also found themselves knocked out of qualifying.

[edit] Part 2

Fernando Alonso took command of Part 2 with a lap of 1:25.326 to put him at the top of the leaderboard, with team-mate Hamilton closely behind in third. BMW's Nick Heidfeld split the McLarens with second. However, Felipe Massa was knocked out of qualifying after an error in turns nine and ten brought his Ferrari to a stricken halt, meaning he started the race from 16th on the grid, which would later become 22nd on the grid due to an engine change. Super Aguri's Takuma Sato made it through to Part 3. But, along with Massa: Anthony Davidson; both the Williams cars of Rosberg and Wurz; Renault's Heikki Kovalainen and Honda's Jenson Button all went out.

[edit] Part 3

Fernando Alonso set the benchmark in Q3 with a time of 1:27.050. But he was soon knocked off top spot by Räikkönen, who went a second quicker with a lap of 1:26.072. Räikkönen kept Pole Position, with Alonso second, but Nick Heidfeld was kept in the mix after Lewis Hamilton had a scruffy middle sector that seen him end up in fourth. Robert Kubica was fifth, with Giancarlo Fisichella sixth.

Red Bull's Mark Webber was seventh with the Toyota's of Schumacher and Trulli eighth and ninth. Super Aguri's Sato rounded out the top ten.

[edit] Race

The start of the 2007 season.

Race day saw a crowd of 105,000 people come to attend the opening round of the 2007 season, and the first race of the "post-Schumacher" era.^[2] The only changes before the race was that Felipe Massa started last after an engine-change,^[3] and Christijan Albers opted to start from the pitlane.

At the start, Räikkönen got clear off the line. Alonso was passed by Heidfeld on the left and was stuck behind Kimi to his front. Hamilton also was stuck behind the leading three for a moment got through into third place after taking the outside line coming into the first corner; Alonso dropped back to fourth position. McLaren team principal Ron Dennis later accuse BMW of "Showboating".^[4] Anthony Davidson stalled on the grid and after getting going hit Adrian Sutil, but managed to keep going. By lap three, Räikkönen was starting to pull away from Heidfeld and by lap five the Finn had a 2 and a half second lead on the German. Meanwhile debutant Lewis Hamilton was still holding onto third place from teammate Alonso.

Christijan Albers in the Spyker became the first driver to retire in the new season, missing his braking point at the Sports Center corner and hitting the tyre barrier. The first to make a pit stop was second place Heidfeld on lap fifthteen; four laps later Kimi Räikkönen pitted and came out in fourth behind Hamilton, now leading on his Grand Prix debut; Alonso and Robert Kubica. Alonso was the first of the two McLarens to pit, suggesting that Hamilton was on a heavier fuel load then his Spanish teammate.

Raikkonen leads the field into turn one, with Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso behind.

The Brit's McLaren pitted a lap later and rejoined behind Räikkönen, who had now reclaimed his lead, but ahead of Heidfeld, who had now dropped back to fifth, and Alonso, despite being held up by the lone Spyker of Adrian Sutil, who had recieved a drive through penalty for the infringement. Honda's Jenson Button also recieved a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Toro Rosso's Scott Speed became the race's second retirement after two of his tyres deflated and crashed at the Clark Chicane on lap thirty–one.

Six laps later at the same Chicane saw Nico Rosberg overtake Ralf Schumacher for seventh place and soon pulled away from the Toyota. On the same lap, Kubica became the third retirement of the race after problems with his gearbox, which was the part of the car the Polish driver was most worried about during the pre–season. At the front meanwhile, Räikkönen was increasing his lead over Hamilton, his lead now over 18 seconds.

Heikki Kovalainen was having, in comparison with Hamilton, a disappointing first race: spinning at the Jones Chicane on his fortieth lap, which lead to him losing a place to Felipe Massa, and running wide on several occasions during the early part of the race. Renault team chief Flavio Briatore desribed the Finn's debut as "rubbish".^[5] Team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella was having a quiet race, as he was not involved in any racing incidents.

The race was won by Kimi Räikkönen on his début for Ferrari. It was the first time since Nigel Mansell at the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix that a driver had won on his debut for Ferrari.

Back at the front, Räikkönen made his final scheduled pit stop of the race and rejoined in third, behind the two McLarens of Hamilton, now leading the race for the second time, and Alonso. Unlike the first set of stops, it was Hamilton who would be the first of the two McLarens to pit and so Alonso was leading for the first time during the race. Alonso pitted a lap later and managed to rejoin the race ahead of his rookie teammate while Räikkönen took his lead back.

Despite a small water leak towards the end, it was Räikkönen who won the race, 7.2 seconds from Alonso and over eighteen seconds from Hamilton, who secured his first ever podium in his maiden grand prix, becoming the first driver to finish on the podium on their debut since Jacques Villeneuve at the 1996 Australian Grand Prix; it was also the first time a driver had won on their first race for Ferrari since Nigel Mansell in 1989 and also the first race in World Championship history where all 3 podium finishers were making their debut for their team, disregarding 1950 where all drivers made their World Championship debuts.

Post race there was some criticism of Bridgestone because the rules mandated that the softer tyre compound should be "visibly distinguishible" while the car is on track. The tiny white dot on the outer side of the tyres proved inadequate. For the next race at Sepang they would go on to paint the "second from outside" groove with white paint.

[edit] Classification

[edit] Qualifying

Pos	Name	Team/Engine	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:26.644	1:25.644	1:26.072
2	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	1:26.697	1:25.326	1:26.493
3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:26.895	1:25.358	1:26.556
4	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:26.674	1:25.577	1:26.755
5	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:26.696	1:25.882	1:27.347
6	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:27.270	1:25.944	1:27.634
7	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:26.978	1:26.623	1:27.934
8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:27.014	1:26.688	1:28.404
9	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:27.328	1:26.739	1:28.692
10	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	1:27.365	1:26.758	1:28.871
11	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	1:26.986	1:26.909
12	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:27.596	1:26.914
13	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	1:27.529	1:26.964
14	Jenson Button	Honda	1:27.540	1:27.264
15	Alexander Wurz	Williams-Toyota	1:27.479	1:27.393
16	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:26.712	no time
17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:27.679
18	Scott Speed	STR-Ferrari	1:28.305
19	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	1:28.579
20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	STR-Ferrari	1:29.267
21	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	1:29.339
22	Christijan Albers	Spyker-Ferrari	1:31.932

[edit] Race

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Lap	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	58	1:25:28.770	1	10
2	1	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+7.242	2	8
3	2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+18.595	4	6
4	9	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	58	+38.763	3	5
5	3	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	58	+1:06.469	6	4
6	5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	58	+1:06.805	22	3
7	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	57	+1 Lap	12	2
8	11	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	57	+1 Lap	9	1
9	12	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	57	+1 Lap	8
10	4	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	57	+1 Lap	13
11	8	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	57	+1 Lap	16
12	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	57	+1 Lap	10
13	15	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	57	+1 Lap	7
14	18	Vitantonio Liuzzi	STR-Ferrari	57	+1 Lap	19
15	7	Jenson Button	Honda	57	+1 Lap	14
16	23	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	56	+2 Laps	11
17	20	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	56	+2 Laps	20
Ret	17	Alexander Wurz	Williams-Toyota	48	Accident	15
Ret	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	48	Accident	18
Ret	10	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	36	Gearbox	5
Ret	19	Scott Speed	STR-Ferrari	28	Puncture	17
Ret	21	Christijan Albers	Spyker-Ferrari	10	Accident	21

[edit] Notes

• Fastest Lap: Kimi Räikkönen, 1:25.235 (Lap 41, 223.978 km/h)
• First Race: Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen, Adrian Sutil

[edit] References

Session results taken from:

1. "Raikkonen sees red in final practice". Official Formula 1 Website. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
2. "Friday Practice One Results". Offical Formula 1 Website. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
3. "Friday Practice Two Results". Offical Formula 1 Website. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
4. "Saturday Practice Results". Offical Formula 1 Website. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.

[edit] External links

• Australian Grand Prix results (fia.com)
• Results from The Official Formula 1 Website

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