The 2014 season was the 65th year of the Formula 1 championship with the opening race held in Melbourne Australia on the 16th of March 2014. First race of the season fans are always excited for racing to commence. Unlike the races today where normally 20 drivers race, during the Australian GP, there were 22 drivers in the running.
Qualifying
Fans who expected some Aussie sunshine during the race weekend where met with a rainy day forecasted for the duration of qualifying. Fan favourite for this race was Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo. There was 6 drivers knocked out from Q1, Grosjean, Ericsson, Gutierrez, Bianchi, Chilton and lastly Maldonado who did not set a time within the 107% requirement.
The next 6 drivers to go during Q2 was Perez, Kobayashi, Sutil, Vettel, Räikkönen, and Button. The last 10 drivers hand out into Q3 with the crowds cheering on for home racer Ricciardo. For a few seconds Ricciardo was on pole before Hamilton secured pole position with the faster lap at 1:44.321. Q3 ended with Bottas, Massa, Kvyat, Hulkenberg, Vergne, Alonso, Magnussen and the top 3, Rosberg, Ricciardo and Hamilton. Bottas had a 5 grid place penalty due to a gearbox change and started 15th, Gutierrez also had 5 grid penalty place due to a gearbox change and started 19th, Grosjean started from the pit lane due to changing his car in parc ferme.
Race
The first few laps were eventful. On the first corner, Kobayashi clipped Massa and both went into the gravel forcing them out of the race. During the third lap, Hamilton had an engine complaint and retired. Vettel had power problems which soon led to his retirement of the race. Rosberg was now in the lead with Ricciardo behind conserving fuel. Bottas came out of turn 10 and hit the wall which broke his rear rim. Two corners later he lost the wheel forcing the safety car to come out. This allowed the race leaders to make an early yet strategic pit stops on the 12th lap of the race.
On lap 20, Ricciardo was given the radio message that he no longer needed to preserve his fuel. Despite having some struggles earlier in the race, Bottas recovered astounding well and gained 5th place . Throughout the race, Ricciardo was putting pressure on Rosberg but started to struggle with 8 laps remaining. This is when McLaren gave radio message to Rookie Magnussen to put pressure on Ricciardo. Ricciardo couldn’t catch up to Rosberg and finished 24 seconds behind the German while Magnussen finished 2 seconds behind Ricciardo in third. The German, Australian and the Danish enjoyed the podium celebrations.
However, the drama for the day did not stop there. The stewards started an investigation into the Ricciardo’s car. Hours later they found that his car exceeded the maximum permitted fuel flow rate and disqualified the Aussie from the race. The official race result consisted of 1st place – Rosberg, 2nd place – Magnussen, and 3rd place – Button, 4th place – Alonso, 5th – Bottas, 6th place – Hulkenberg, 7th place – Räikkönen, 8th place – Vergne, 9th place – Kvyat, and 10th place – Perez. What an amazing season opener!
Hope you enjoyed Flashback Friday! Like and share and let us know what you want to see next!
About The Author
Leave a Reply