Track Torque: Bottas simply brilliant

Valtteri Bottas was quick in qualifying and went like a rocket in the race. He said his victory at the season opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne was his best-ever.

Runner-up Lewis Hamilton was a bit mystified by the magic of his teammate and was a little subdued, particularly since he also to contend with the super-fast Red Bull driven by Max Verstappen snapping at his heels.

ALSO READ : Track Torque: Who’s who in F1 zoo?

Red Bull’s Honda engine is now showing real potential.

At times he was half a second behind Hamilton but could not get by at a track where it’s very difficult to overtake.

So, that was the exciting end to the podium result.

The two Ferraris were a bit of a disappointment although they did finish fourth and fifth (Sebastian Vettel then Charles Leclerc).

We hope they can do better for the Bahrain race in two weeks’ time.

From sixth to eighth position, it was an extremely close-fought race with Kevin Magnussen in the sole remaining Haas in sixth, Nico Hulkenberg seventh in the Renault and Kimi Raikkonen in the Alfa Romeo in eighth.

Lance Stroll, in the Racing Point (Ex Force India), was ninth with the last point earning position going to Russian Daniil Kvyat in tenth.

It was a good race which was very competitive, save for the Prancing Horses, and the new rules worked well except that those designed to make overtaking easier didn’t have much chance at this difficult-to-pass track.

Bahrain should be a lot different. Now that we know who’s who in this year’s zoo we can concentrate on some of the in-fighting and technical aspects in future races, suffice to say however, that the new Mercedes technically now has a greater angle of attack, but not quite as much as the other cars.

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