Newz Forum: AUTO: F1 Australian Grand Prix

Michael Schumacher driving a Ferrari won the season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix at Albert Park on Sunday.The six-time world champion led an emphatic one-two for Ferrari with teammate Rubens Barrichello taking second ahead of Renault's Fernando Alonso third.The German ace led from start to finish to beat Barrichello by 13.6 seconds over the 58 laps with Alonso well back in third place to take his place on the podium. It was Schumacher's 71st win in his 196th GP. He has now won four Australian GPs in the last five years with Ferrari winning in five of the last six years.Schumacher, now 35, had been written off by some during the winter as not having the same hunger to remain the undisputed king of F1, but the Ferraris were vastly superior to any other team this weekend.


To say that Ferrari sprang a major surprise in Melbourne is an understatement. Everyone knew that the red cars should never be discounted, and that you under-estimate Bridgestone at your peril, but not even Sir Frank Williams could have foreseen that the F2004s would be so utterly dominant. Their crushing superiority left everyone clutching for straws of comfort.Schumacher himself advised people to wait and see what happened in Malaysia in a fortnight's time before drawing complete conclusions on the way the season is likely to unravel, but for sure there were a lot of people scratching their heads on Sunday evening.Best of the rest were Renault, and while the R24 is an absolute jewel of a car, adjudged by many to be the best aero package in the paddock, few expected it to be superior to the BMW Williams, which had looked good all through winter testing. Yet on the day Fernando Alonso got more out of his car, tyres and set-up than either Ralf Schumacher or the accident-prone Juan Pablo Montoya, and third place was a fine reward.One of the few teams that left Australia with their tails up were BAR. Though Jenson Button proved unable to hold on to his initial fourth place after a problem with the refuelling nozzle in his second pit stop, he still finished sixth for three points and the team proved their pace in qualifying when he set the same third fastest time as Montoya's Williams.