Formula One season gets underway - Renault, Ferrari, McLaren and Honda on the pace

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Formula One season gets underway - Renault, Ferrari, McLaren and Honda on the pace

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Button made his final stop on lap 40 and emerged just behind Raikkonen and would push him all the way to the chequered flag but would just fail to pass. The pair slipped ahead of Montoya when the Colombian made his final stop on lap 44. He finished fifth, The steady Webber finished sixth ahead of teammate Rosberg who came through magnificently not only to set fastest lap - twice - but to overtake several other cars, including both Red Bull Racing-Ferraris in the final stint. Klien salvaged eighth, just ahead of the recovered Massa.

The drive of the race

Kimi Räikkönen started from dead last with a one stop strategy and a heavy fuel load. By the eighth lap he had improved to tenth position after which he became boxed in behind Jacques Villeneuve's BMW Sauber. On the first corner of lap 16 Kimi outbraked the Canadian to take eighth place and one lap later he was up to seventh. After the pit stops of Michael Schumacher's Ferrari (lap 15), Jenson Button's Honda (lap 18) and Alonso (lap 19), Juan Pablo took the lead on lap 20 with Kimi now having climbed to fifth place. Juan Pablo came in for his first stop on lap 23 (8.8sec) and rejoined the race in fourth position behind his team-mate. Kimi made his sole stop on lap 30 and fell back to sixth place after being stationary for 11.0sec. Juan Pablo came in for his second stop on lap 44 (6.9sec) and regained the circuit in fifth position.

During the final phase of the race Räikkönen matched the pace and lap times of Alonso and Michael Schumacher to take the chequered flag 19.3sec behind the Renault in third position with Juan Pablo taking fifth.

Most promising debut

Without a shadow of doubt the performance of Nico Rosberg in the Williams Cosworth would have had his former F1 star father (Keke) brimming with pride. Not only did the young Nico score points in his first Grand prix, he did so in a car few expected to be competitive, and to cap it all off, he cut the fastest lap of the race.

The immediate future

All teams now have just one week in which to move their equipment to Malaysia for the second race of the season, then a fortnight later the Australian Grand Prix completes the initial fly-away portion of the F1 season. From there, we’ll see five consecutive European races prior to the Canadian (June 25) and United States Grand Prix (July 2). Then a further five European races precede the final three fly-aways fo the season in China, Japan and Brazil.

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