2012 Australian Grand Prix (March 16 - 18)

Button opened the first official session with the fastest time:

Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m27.560s 11
2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m27.805s + 0.245 14
3. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m28.235s + 0.675 17
4. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m28.360s + 0.800 21
5. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m28.467s + 0.907 21
6. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m28.683s + 1.123 22
7. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m28.908s + 1.348 23
8. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m29.415s + 1.855 16
9. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m29.565s + 2.005 8
10. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m29.722s + 2.162 26
11. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m29.790s + 2.230 21
12. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m29.865s + 2.305 17
13. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m29.881s + 2.321 18
14. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 1m29.953s + 2.393 21
15. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m30.124s + 2.564 22
16. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m30.515s + 2.955 16
17. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1m30.586s + 3.026 16
18. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m30.743s + 3.183 11
19. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m31.178s + 3.618 17
20. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1m31.983s + 4.423 8
21. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1m34.730s + 7.170 8
22. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 1m40.256s + 12.696 11
23. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth no time 3
24. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth no time 0

[url="http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98053"]Jenson Button fastest for McLaren in opening Australian Grand Prix practice - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com[/url]

Schumacher topped the second session, which was on a drying surface:

Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m29.183s 16
2. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m29.292s + 0.109 19
3. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m30.199s + 1.016 23
4. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m30.341s + 1.158 13
5. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m30.709s + 1.526 14
6. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m31.466s + 2.283 13
7. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m31.505s + 2.322 14
8. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1m31.932s + 2.749 16
9. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m32.184s + 3.001 17
10. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m32.194s + 3.011 19
11. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m32.296s + 3.113 20
12. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1m32.632s + 3.449 17
13. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1m32.767s + 3.584 15
14. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m32.822s + 3.639 11
15. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m33.039s + 3.856 18
16. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m33.252s + 4.069 11
17. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m34.108s + 4.925 21
18. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m34.275s + 5.092 7
19. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 1m34.312s + 5.129 17
20. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m34.485s + 5.302 29
21. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m34.604s + 5.421 31
22. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 1m34.770s + 5.587 13
23. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m42.627s + 13.444 16
24. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 1

[url="http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98058"]Michael Schumacher tops second practice for the Australian Grand Prix - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com[/url]

well the iceman shows he's been away for a while :O

looks like the year might be a harder fight than 2011 ~

Ya, nice to see Grosjean up there in third for quali - bodes well for the car uder Kimi for a few races later. Nice to see some different cars up top than last season. Looking forward to the race now, should be a good show.

Kimi is said to have misunderstood the schedule. He thought he has had another fast lap in Q1.

Great pace from Mercedes, hope Saubers were just unlucky in Q2 and would be much faster. Ferrari is just... 'eh, what?'. and Red Bull's 5-6 is somewhat similar...

Pos # Name Car Laps Total Time Start Pts
1 3 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 58 1:34:09.565 2 25
2 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing-Renault 58 +2.1 secs 6 18
3 4 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 58 +4.0 secs 1 15
4 2 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing-Renault 58 +4.5 secs 5 12
5 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 58 +21.5 secs 12 10
6 14 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 58 +36.7 secs 13 8
7 9 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus-Renault 58 +38.0 secs 17 6
8 15 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 58 +39.4 secs 22 4
9 16 Daniel Ricciardo STR-Ferrari 58 +39.5 secs 10 2
10 11 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 58 +39.7 secs 15 1
11 17 Jean-Eric Vergne STR-Ferrari 58 +39.8 secs 11
12 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 58 +57.6 secs 7
13 18 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 57 Accident 8
14 24 Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 57 +1 Lap 20
15 25 Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 53 +5 Laps 21
16 19 Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 52 Accident damage 14
Ret 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 46 Accident damage 16
Ret 20 Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 38 Suspension 18
Ret 21 Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 34 Steering 19
Ret 7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 10 Gearbox 4
Ret 10 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1 Accident 3
Ret 12 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 0 Accident damage 9
DNS 22 Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth
DNS 23 Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth

So the results are in, and it's Button, Vettel, and Hamilton on the podium. Button's day went excellently, he having taken advantage of Hamilton's wheelspin to steal the lead. But it wasn't until the second restart that he took off away from the rest of the field. He built a convincing lead and KEPT it that way for the rest of the race. Neither Vettel nor Hamilton had any hope of challenging his 2-3 second lead.

Vettel had a pretty terrible day leading up to the race,starting off five places down from his usual position, to see it suddenly reverse come race day. Made up most of the spots from the start and pressured Schumi into going off on the fourth lap and breaking his gearbox.

It wasn't that good of a day for Hamilton. Not only did he lose pole position, but Vettel got past him. Like Vettel, he didn't have a chance of catching Button. Webber's day was much better and he took home his best finishing position at his home race. You could definitely see the difference between Webber and Vettel when he was challenging (I think it was turn 11) Nico Rosberg for position. Whereas Vettel would probably have taken him on the inside, Webber simply backs off.

Alonso had a pretty uneventful day. Came home in a solid fifth, but Kamui Kobayashi, in his typical hard-charging style, did an impressive sixth. On the second restart he pulled a fast one on Kimi, out-braking him into the first corner! He tried the same thing with Rosberg and almost got away with it. Still, I'm sure he's happy with the day's result.

While former world champion Kimi Raikkonen may have finished lower that we thought, it was still a good start considering how terrible his qualifying went and how he had to take chunks of Williams to the face, not to mention the blue flags confusion. Scuderia Toro Rosso and, surprisingly, Force India filled out the last two points-paying positions. Great driving from these guys.

Poor Mercedes, what with Schumi breaking his gearbox on the fourth lap and Rosberg having some sort of issue that saw the car slow down. They really deserved better than Rosberg's twelfth.

Marussia tried the Ann Veal "Who -Her?"-technique of getting to the finish line without people noticing and they made it despite having zero T.V. coverage and everyone wondering who Charles Pic was. Not an impressive performance by any means, but still something to applaud as more established drivers failed to make it to the line. Hey, you can't win if you don't finish!

That leaves the DNFs. Pastor Maldonado bit the wall in a spectacular fashion on the last lap. Bad end to a pretty impressive day - he was able to hang onto sixth for a while - in the kind of crash that would probably have sent him to the morgue had they not implemented HANS and the wheel tethers. Bruno Senna and Massa had a bit of a tangle near the end with contact taking both cars out - Massa first and then Senna after a few more laps. There's talks of penalizing both drivers, but I don't think that's going to happen, what with BOTH of them DNF-ing! In true British fashion, the Caterhams developed mechanical failure and neither of them made it to the finish line. The joke that is HRT didn't even make it to the Start/Finish line. Hell, they didn't even make it to the start!

Well, that's what I got from the SKYsports coverage of the race. Martin Brundle's pre-race gridwalk was the fourth-most awkward thing I've ever seen.

Sergio Perez deserves props for best drive of the race... started 22nd and finished 8th. Good on him.

Somewhat surprised Vettel let Button get the jump on him after two circuits under yellow.
The safety car was long gone; it seemed obvious what Button would do.

Obvious, but not a lot that he could've done about it. Given the 3 second gap that Button quickly put on him and all that as well..

Shame about Grosjean being taken out by Maldonado, was a little surprised that there was no investigation of that one.. unless I missed it. Seems like the Lotus is a pretty solid package this year, would've been good to see what it could've done amoungst the front runners.

Thanks for the summary, kotr. I wasn't going to get up early for it (is it even on basic American cable?) and my torrent didn't really work.
I'd have liked to see Webber do better at his home race as well as Kovalainen and the Lotus Caterham Lotus Renault Lotus team.
Were the HRTs excluded because of the 107% rule or because of mechanical issues?

HRTs were out due to 107%. Also, that was Webber's best result there since his 5th place finish in the Minardi way back when.

[quote=f6fhellcat13;982255]...Lotus Caterham Lotus Renault Lotus team.[/quote]

As opposed to the Lotus Genii Lotus Renault Lotus team? :p

I don't whats crazier, the fact that he never finished better than 4th at his home GP after all the RBR years, or his last best finish was in a Minardi(proper) of all things...