Vettel holds off Hamilton to win Australian GP thriller
Vettel exploits pit stop miscalculation of Mercedes to win seasonopening race
bit lucky today,” Vettel said at the victory ceremony.
“Lewis did a great lap yesterday and deserved pole and he drove a very good race, controlling in the beginning.
“We got a bit lucky but we will take it. We’re not yet where we want to be, I don’t quite feel the car, but it gives us a good start, good wind and fresh motivation.”
It was Vettel’s 48th win in his 200th grand prix and follows his earlier wins in Melbourne in 2011 for Red Bull and last year for Ferrari.
Vettel, 30, is in a duel this season with Hamilton as they chase 1950s Argentine legend Juan Manuel Fangio’s mark of five world titles -- second only to Michael Schumacher’s seven in
the all-time list.
‘WHAT JUST HAPPENED?’
Hamilton, who had started from pole position, got out his car and looked a bit bewildered as he removed his helmet, wondering how exactly that race got away from him.
“Today they did the better job. We have to go back to the drawing board and work on it,” Hamilton said.
“At the end it was live to fight another day and save the engine.”
Vettel had led after Hamilton’s early tyre stop and when mid-race the German changed to a new set of soft tyres he emerged still ahead, gaining around 10 seconds in the pit lane thanks to the Mercedes driver having to slow on track once the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) had been deployed.
“What just happened guys? Was that my mistake?” a confused Hamilton said on team radio as he saw Vettel come out of the pit lane in front of him before a full safety car was sent out with marshals struggling to remove the stranded Haas of Romain Grosjean.
“We thought we were safe, but there’s obviously something wrong,” the team told Hamilton. Mercedes potentially miscalculated the VSC minimum speed during the phase Vettel claimed the lead.
Vettel retained his lead as the race was restarted and built a lead of seven-tenths of a second.
Hamilton made an error as he locked up at turn nine and fell 2.8 seconds behind Vettel with 11 laps remaining.
Vettel proved too resilient and held on as Hamilton backed off over the final laps realising he could not pass the flying German.
Lewis did a great lap yesterday and deserved pole and he drove a very good race, controlling in the beginning. We got a bit lucky but we will take it SEBASTIAN VETTEL , Ferrari driver