Raikkonen wins dominantly while Hamilton stuns

F1 Grand Prix, GP Australia, Albert Park

Kimi Raikkonen has immediately won his first race for Ferrari. He did so in a dominant way by even lapping his own teammate Felipe Massa. Fernando Alonso came in second with his new McLaren and was only able to pass his teammate during the final pitstop. Heidfeld is the first BMW and is followed by Fisichella and Alonso.

As the lights went out it became clear that Alonso was on hard tyres and could explain for his rather bad start. The Spaniard lost 2 places to Heidfeld and his teammate. Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand rapidly pulled away and already had a slight lead over Heidfeld after the first lap. Five laps in the race it's up to 3.2 seconds. The other Ferrari, of Felipe Massa is gaining places through the pack after having started from the back because of an engine change.

Anthony Davidson of Super Aguri had a very unfortunate start as his cars appeared blocked and was already last by the time it started moving decently. A further 2 laps in the race, another rookie his him. Adrian Sutil of Spyker was on the inside and both men touched with the wheels. The two could continue their races without problems.

The other Spyker was less fortunate as after 10 laps Albers came in too quickly and hit the tire barriers. It appeared as is if he was having trouble with his earphones, got distracted and braked too late.

While Raikkonen keeps building up his advantage to at about 1 full second a lap, Massa is stuck in 15th position behind both Honda cars. The train is losing considerable time. Barrichello though is visibly faster than Button and passes his teammate a few laps later.

Heidfeld is the first to pit after 15 laps. He started on soft tyres and continues the race with the harder specification. Both McLarens then have a clean track in front of them as Hamilton is 15 seconds behind Raikkonen. Alonso is just 1.5 seconds behind his teammate. After 19 laps Raikkonen pits too which pits the rookie Hamilton in the lead. The young Brit has done nothing but impress so far this weekend.

After their first stops, Alonso came very close to Hamilton but lost a bit of time afterwards.

27 laps from the end, Speed is done racing after a blown tyre. Massa also just entered the pitlane and completed half a race on the soft tyres. Since he must use both specs during the race, he will run the harder Bridgestone in the next half of the race. Jenson Button meanwhile got a drive through after speeding in the pitlane.

With 25 laps to go, Raikkonen is leading with 17 seconds ahead of Hamilton. Alonso is a close third and 13 seconds ahead of Kubica. Heidfeld, Fisico, Ralf and Rosberg complete the provisional points positions so far.

Surprisingly Massa is being lapped by Kimi Raikkonen with 21 laps to go. At the same time, Kubica's race is finished after completing his final lap at reduced pace. Heikki Kovalainen meanwhile has seen all parts of the track as he's going wide or off in several corners. The Finn is apparently having trouble with his tyres, suffering understeer and oversteer in diferent places of the circuit.

14 laps to go and Alonso continues longer than Hamilton before his final pitstop. The world champion's experience counted double here as a very good inlap was enough to move ahead of his teammate.

Then, with only 9 laps to go, Wurz and Coulthard touch. It may have been a slightly optimistic move which might have had bad endings. Coulthard's Red Bull slid over the Williams and just nearly missed Wurz' helmet. It could have been a disaster if Wurz was just 50cm further ahead. Both men had their race ended.

During the final stages of the race, Massa put in a good challange on fisichella but was unable to pass the Italian.