Melbourne: Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel made an ideal start to his Formula One title defense, driving a flawless race to outpace McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and win the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Starting from pole position, Vettel maintained his lead after the first turn and had already opened a gap of more than 2 seconds over Hamilton following the first lap and the German was never seriously threatened.
Renault's Vitaly Petrov was a surprise third, claiming his first ever podium finish with a strong drive.
Vettel, who drove a two-stop strategy on the new Pirelli tires, made his first pit to change to softer rubber in the 14th lap, emerging still in 3rd ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button. He regained the lead two laps later when Hamilton took a tire change and never looked like being threatened from then on, eventually winning by more than 22 seconds.
"Very cool," he radioed to his team after taking the checkered flag. "Excellent car. Excellent stops."
Fernando Alonso finished fourth, while Australian Mark Webber was fifth, as both used three-stop strategies — one more than the podium finishers.
Button was sixth, falling short in his bid to win the race for a third straight year. He had to do a drivethrough penalty after using a slip road to pass Ferrari's Felipe Massa in the early part of the race, and that cost him a shot at third.
Sauber's Sergio Perez was an impressive seventh in his first grand prix; remarkably only pitting once. He finished ahead of teammate Kamui Kobayashi, while Massa was ninth and Toro Rosso's Sebastian Buemi took the last point in tenth.
It was a bad day for Mercedes, with both Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg forced to retire.
"I had a good start, made up quite a few positions, then had a good run into turn three, but as I turned in someone (Jaime Alguersuari) knocked on to my right rear," Schumacher said. "The consequence was I had a puncture which destroyed the right tire, and driving back to the pits basically destroyed the right floor. In the end the team decided for safety it wasn't worth staying out."
Hamilton also damaged the floor of his car when he went wide on turn one of his 32nd lap. He continued on, even though the team warned him late to nurse the car into second rather than try to mount a challenge for the lead.
Rosbedrg was forced to retire shortly after colliding with Ruben's Barrichelo in the 24th lap as the Williams driver attempted to find. Barichello was handed a drive through penalty for causing the crash.
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