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Button Wins F1 Season Opener In Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia- Taking advantage of a quick start at the beginning of the race, Jenson Button held firm Sunday afternoon to win his third Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park. Despite starting from fifth, defending world champion Sebastian Vettel took second, while a disappointed Lewis Hamilton, who won the pole the previous day, finished third.

“Every victory means a lot – but today shows just how important it was to have a strong winter.” Said Button. “The starts of the past two seasons have both been tricky for us, so today is really encouraging. The guys at the circuit and all the men and women back in Woking have done an amazing job to get us here. Today means a lot to me, and I’m sure it’ll mean a lot to all of them too: it’ll make those extra hours worked in the early hours of the morning all the more worthwhile, because we know we can do great things with this car. At the start, I really wanted to get away fast in the first two laps to avoid the threat of DRS – it wasn’t easy because I had Lewis right on my tail. But the race went smoothly after that. My biggest worry was the late-race Safety Car: I had a 10-second advantage, which was pretty healthy, but the Safety Car cut that to nothing. And, since it was 6.00pm, with the sun going down, it was quite difficult to keep temperature in the tires when we were running slowly behind the Safety Car. That was a big worry for me, but it worked out okay in the end: I got clear of Seb [Vettel] and the DRS zone pretty quickly and was able to pull out an advantage and hold it to the end. There’s a huge amount of positives to take away from this weekend: we’ve got a great car and we can fight for the world championships.”

The start, which was always a problem at this venue, was successful as all cars came though unshaved, but Bruno Senna went too wide and slid into the gravel, despite returning back to the race with no problems. But only another lap later, Senna was touched in the second turn of the course by Nico Hulkenberg and Mark Webber. Hulkenberg himself suffered the worst of the trio, pushing himself into the gravel, and retired from the race. As the grid returned for a third lap, Romain Grosjean was rounding a corner in the back of the circuit, when Pastor Maldonado in his Williams, clipped the front wheel of the Lotus, breaking the suspension immediately, which forced the Frenchman to end his race for the day.

Up front, the grid remained the same, except Vettel was now on the heels of Michael Schumacher, to try and take third place. But the seven time world champion was not having any of it, and only when his gearbox failed did Vettel manage to take over third position.

“It was an unfortunate end to my race when I lost drive going into turn one.” Explained Schumacher. “I was trying different gears and occasionally the drive came back, but in the end, I had to go onto the grass to avoid the risk of the car being forced into a spin. It was especially unfortunate as we have not had this problem during the winter tests and were very reliable. This is why I am not concerned, as I know things like this happen in racing, and our reliability is not in question. I believe I could have had a good race this afternoon, and I can still take some positives out of the weekend as we have seen our car was confirming our feelings, and is definitely a clear step forward. We can now build on that and start improving further.”

Button continued to dominate, even after the first round of pit stops. And after the halfway point, the Briton continued to extend his lead over Hamilton by over ten seconds by lap 36. But just when it seemed that the race would slow down, Vitaly Petrov changed this when his Caterham entry had An engine issue, and the Russian parked his car right alongside the start/finish line, bringing the safety car out for the first time this year. Many drivers took advantage of the slow situation, and dived into the pits for tire changes. This gave Button the lead again, after surrendering it to Hamilton laps before. To make this worse, the pit stops made Vettel pass Hamilton for second, when the race restarted again four laps later.

“I’m very happy with myself today.” realized the German . “I think it was the most we could have achieved. I felt good in the car. Even before the safety car, I think we would have had a good shot at Lewis towards the end, as we were getting close. I decided to stay out when he went to the pits and we would have had a crack even without the safety car. I think it was a great race – a lot of fun. I had a good start initially and was surprised by Nico, who had a very good start and got past. I passed him again, which was a great manoeuvre and on the edge. Behind Michael, I had a mistake and went off in the first corner; he then did exactly the same when I got close to him, which was good. Congratulations to McLaren and to Jenson, I think he drove a fantastic race and was unbeatable today. I’m very happy to come away with second place, it’s a lot of points and I think people would not have expected it after yesterday. I think we had a better car in the race and it seems to have a lot of potential, now it’s up to us to get to it. Thanks to everyone who is pushing so hard and making this race result possible today.”

With only a few laps to go, the excitement level began to increase, as it always does during this event. Brazilians Felipe Massa who began to move up the field in his Ferrari, locked wheels with Senna, with both retiring from the race laps later with suspension damage. And with only one lap to go, Maldonado, who was comfortably in the top ten, crashed his car on the back straight and despite his wreck; it was too late to initiate a safety car and by this time Button already crossed the finish line and won the event. As the cars came across the finish line, Webber took fourth, while Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso finished in fifth, an impressive result following the Spaniard beginning the race from the middle of the grid. But Maldanado’s accident blocked some of the drivers battling for the final point positions as Kamui Kobyaschi, Kimi Raikkonen, who was back for the first time in two years; Sergio Perez, Daniel Riccardo and Paul Di Resta had to fight their way around the William’s damaged car and the route to the finish line. All the mentioned drivers finished in those respective orders sixth through tenth. And as far as Button was concerned, he summed his start of the season with a lot of confidence.

“This is a perfect start to my season and I’m already looking forward to Malaysia.” He said.

It won’t take Button long for the grid to race again as the F1 teams head to Malaysia next week on a track that has very different race conditions.

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