World champion Sebastian Vettel got his title defence off to the ideal start with a well-judged 11th career victory in the Australian Grand Prix.
The Red Bull ace made a perfect getaway from pole position and was never seriously threatened – though nor did he disappear into the wide blue yonder as it appeared he would when he finished the opening lap with a 2.4s lead.
Indeed, Lewis Hamilton kept him within sight for much of the race as McLaren again showed better than expected pace, then coped superbly with a detached undertray to bring the MP4-26 home in second place.
Renault’s Vitaly Petrov was the surprise third place finisher, the Russian fully meriting his first F1 podium after a strong showing throughout the weekend, a career-best qualifying effort, a rapid start and a flawless drive thereafter.
Petrov soaked up pressure from a closing Fernando Alonso in the closing stages, the Ferrari driver having spent the race in catch-up mode after losing four positions on the opening lap.
Alonso did best of those who employed a three-stop pit strategy rather than the more common two-stop ploy. Mark Webber’s decision to switch to hard tyres at his first stop failed to pay off and the Australian had a rather low-key run to fifth place, as a decent result in his home race continued to elude him.
Jenson Button overcame a drive-through penalty to take sixth, while Sergio Perez drove outstandingly on his grand prix debut to cross the line in seventh place – only to be stripped of the result when both Saubers were disqualified for a rear wing infringement.
When the lights went out at the start, Vettel established a clear lead as Hamilton and Webber squabbled into turn one and the pack concertinaed behind. Alonso tried to pass Button on the outside line but was squeezed out and dropped all the way to ninth place, while Petrov and Massa surged to fourth and fifth respectively.
Vettel streaked away from the chasing pack over the first two laps, but once Hamilton found his rhythm the gap stabilised at around three seconds.
Webber could not keep up with the front-running pace and occupied an increasingly distant third before initiating the first round of pit stops on lap 12.
Both Red Bull drivers had reported that their tyres were starting to deteriorate, and surprisingly Hamilton was able to close on Vettel at the end of the first stint, reducing the deficit to 1.3s by the time the leader pitted at the end of his 14th lap.
Lewis stayed out an extra two laps, but by then he too was losing grip and after his tyre change found that Vettel’s advantage had grown to 6.2s – even though in the meantime the German had to muscle past the other McLaren of Button, who was yet to stop.
Button had spent the opening 10 laps frantically trying to relieve a defensive Massa of fifth place, finally making it stick with an audacious move around the outside at the fast chicane on the back straight – but only by taking a short-cut through the escape road inside the right-hand apex.
Alonso, who was charging back through the field after his poor start, capitalised on Massa’s lost momentum to demote his team-mate a couple of corners later.
The officials took a dim view of Button’s move and issued a drive-through penalty, which he served on lap 18 following his scheduled tyre change.
McLaren were somewhat aggrieved by the penalty, claiming that they had asked race control for guidance on whether Button needed to cede the place back to Massa and had not had a response when the drive-through was handed down.
Meanwhile at the front Vettel was consolidating his lead, extending his margin over Hamilton to 7.3s on lap 26 and nine seconds by lap 29.
It became apparent that Hamilton was grappling with a damaged floor stay on his McLaren, which was causing the car to rub against the ground and robbing it of significant downforce.
The 2008 world champion managed the problem impressively, keeping the car on the road apart from one grassy excursion at turn one and continuing to lap quickly enough to ensure his second place remained secure.
The fading challenge from Hamilton allowed Vettel to cruise to a comfortable victory, and attention switched in the closing stages to the livelier scraps further down the field.
Webber fell steadily further adrift of the leaders in the race’s middle stages and into the clutches of Alonso, who got past when the pair made their final pit visits on consecutive laps and Webber lost time with a mistake on his out-lap.
Meanwhile Petrov, who was on the more typical two-stop strategy, leapfrogged both to move into third place.
Webber, now on soft tyres, initially harried Alonso before the Spaniard pulled out some breathing space and was able to focus on hunting down Petrov. The Renault man had enough of a cushion to hold on for his maiden podium, though, and he didn’t allow himself to get distracted by the looming Ferrari in his mirrors.
His mature drive will have reassured the Anglo-French team that they made the right decision in retaining him after an inconclusive rookie campaign – not least because it contrasted with an inglorious weekend for his experienced team-mate Nick Heidfeld, who was expected to assume the team leader role during Robert Kubica’s enforced absence but instead was outpaced by Petrov throughout.
Button renewed hostilities with Massa as he battled back through the field, using the DRS overtaking system to breeze past the Ferrari on the pit straight on lap 48 en route to sixth place.
Massa pitted for a third time shortly afterwards and dropped to 10th place behind the Saubers and Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso, but recovered one position when on new soft rubber he dispatched Buemi easily four laps from the end.
Perez drove like a seasoned ace rather than the rookie he is, setting the sixth fastest lap, making no mistakes and beating his more hyped team-mate Kamui Kobayashi by 11 seconds. Remarkably, the young Mexican completed the 58 laps with only one tyre change, making his set of soft-compound Pirellis last 35 laps while others found their soft rubber degraded heavily after 15-20 laps.
But his fine drive went unrewarded when both Saubers were disqualified for a technical infringement following post-race scrutineering – promoting Massa to seventh ahead of Buemi and the Force Indias.
That meant Paul di Resta received the unexpected bonus of a world championship point to round off a fine debut drive in which he ran ahead of team-mate Adrian Sutil in the early stages and then shadowed the German before backing off to conserve fuel in the closing laps.