Vettel Beats Hamilton In highly Anticipated Season Opener

Hello F1 fans! I barley survived the 122 day long off season. Yes, I seriously counted down the days, starting from November 27 (The last race of last season) to March 26, the day of the season opener in Australia! I was extremely excited for this race, and for very good reason. This year, there were dramatic rule changes, made to accompany, faster, meaner and much harder to drive F1 cars! What this also means, is that the teams will have to start from scratch, because their information on the other cars they made will be irrelevant! This means that the other teams will be able to catch up to Mercedes, who have dominated the hybrid era of F1.

HAMILTON EDGES OUT RIVALS IN NAIL BITING QUALIFYING

This year’s pole position time was nearly 2 seconds faster than least year thanks to the faster cars

This qualifying session came down to the wire, and was settled by less than 3 tenths of a second! In Q3, Hamilton posted a very quick time of 1:22.188 the put him on provisional pole. His teammate Valterri Bottas failed to beat that time, but it was good enough to secure him a spot on the front row. However, Sebastian Vettel put in a lap that dispatched Bottas by less than a tenth of a second!

Qualifying Results

HOW DID THINGS PAN OUT?

Hamilton had a slightly better start than the rest of the field. The order stayed very much the same into the first corner. There was a lot of speculation that overtaking would be harder because the increased downforce created means it is hard to follow closely behind another car. However, this did not seem to happen to Sebastian Vettel, as he was managing to keep up with the Mercedes! However, he was not quick enough to pass the British driver. So Ferrari had to think of a unique pit stop strategy to give Vettel a chance of winning the race. When the leader came into the pits, Vettel stayed out and put a few quick laps in. Hamilton then caught up to the slower Max Verstappen, who held the Briton up. Sebastian then pitted and came out just in front of the pair. By then time Hamilton dispatched Verstappen, Vettel was off in the distance and went on to win the race.