Robert Kubica, snapped by Snoopy

Pia (aka Snoopy) was at the first round of the season in Australia and took some great pictures from the pits and snapped loads of the drivers including Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher.

Have a look at the pictures from Melbourne below.

If you’ve been to a Grand Prix this year and have got some photos to share you can email me or upload them via the F1 Fanatic drop.io. They don’t have to be new pictures either – photos of classic F1 racing action would be great as well!

More F1 pictures

Images (C) Ferrari spa, Brawn GP, Renault/LAT, Williams/LAT, Bridgestone, www.mclaren.com, Getty Images/Red Bull, Force India F1 Team, Toyota F1 World, BMW ag

Brawn's Melbourne rout brought back McLaren memories

A new season, a new generation of Formula 1 cars, and a routing of the opposition. This year’s Australian Grand Prix had much in common with the 1998 race. F1 Fanatic guest writer Andrew Tsvyk tells the story.

During the presentation of McLaren’s newest Formula 1 challenger on January 16th, Ron Dennis announced his retirement from the team. This was not entirely a surprise for the F1 community, as rumours of Dennis quitting had been in the air for a year or so. Lewis Hamilton’s championship success gave Dennis a wonderful opportunity to end his F1 career on a high and he took it.

During his ultra-successful McLaren tenure career, which spanned almost three decades, Dennis tasted great success and bitter acrimony. The 1998 Australian Grand Prix mixed both.

Back on top

1998 was the year McLaren returned to their winning ways. The seeds of the team’s recovery after three winless season were sown when Dennis succeeded in tempting Mercedes-Benz away from Sauber, and Adrian Newey away from Williams.

McLaren-Mercedes got their third season together off to a winning start as David Coulthard produced arguably the biggest sensation of 1997 by winning the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. The West-sponsored McLarens won two more races that season, signalling that the outfit from Woking was heading in the right direction.

Things improved for the silver arrows the following year, as Newey built the blindingly fast MP4/13, adapting it perfectly to the sweeping rule changes (such as the reduction of the car’s width and the introduction of grooved tyres). Newey’s creation dominated pre-season testing. McLaren’s performance of the curtain-raising Australian Grand Prix left few people surprised. Nevertheless, the race itself was far from trouble-free for the team.

Qualifying produced the widely expected all-McLaren front row, with Mika Hakkinen ahead of David Coulthard by 0.043s, while third place went to Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari. After a disgraceful defeat in Jerez, Schumacher was hoping that his team had finally beaten a car to rival Williams. However, with Renault ceasing engine supply at the end of 1997, Williams were no longer the leaders.

Easy one-two

When the red lights went off the McLaren drivers had a strong get away and were able to keep their positions. Schumacher stayed third, made a bid to pass Coulthard when the McLaren clipped the grass exiting turn two but fell back.

Hakkinen completed the opening lap 1.5s ahead of Coulthard, with Schumacher and Villeneuve 2.8 and 4.2 sec adrift respectively. In the laps that followed the running order remained unchanged, while the gap to the McLaren drivers kept growing. It seemed that only Schumacher could threaten them, but on lap five his race came to a premature end as a result of engine failure.

Schumacher’s demise left McLaren in the league of their own as Villeneuve, the best of the chasers, fell back at a rate of up to three seconds per lap. It was clear that, unless mechanical problems intervened, only the McLaren drivers would have a chance to dispute the victory.

The phantom pit stop

Coulthard never really troubled Hakkinen despite the small gap between them. But in a sudden twist on lap 36 the order was swapped, with Coulthard hitting the front. The most peculiar thing was that Coulthard inherited the lead when Hakkinen inexplicably turned into the pits and drove past the McLaren garage where nobody was waiting for him. It transpired the race leader had misunderstood his engineer warning him about upcoming traffic. Hakkinen was known to have had hearing difficulties since his live-threatening crash at Adelaide in 1995.

Hakkinen’s excursion down the pit-lane cost his around thirty seconds. But even after having lost so much time he was able to rejoin the race in second position – such was the advantage that the McLaren drivers were enjoying over the opposition on that day. After a few laps he began to catch Coulthard.

The new leader did little to hold Hakkinen back. He was informed by the team that a mistake had occurred and that it was up to him to correct it. Being a true gentleman as well as a team player he let Hakkinen through with fewer than three laps to go.

So what made Coulthard relinquish the lead of the race? The answer to this question became available only after the end of the Grand Prix. Arriving in Melbourne Dennis was aware that his drivers had the fastest car in the field at their disposal. However, unreliability threatened to be the MP4-13’s Achilles’ heel and Dennis decided to intervene.

He asked his drivers not to push each other to the limit, urging them to decide the outcome of the race off the track. The two agreed, reaching a consensus that the one to arrive at turn one first would clinch the victory. Having started from pole-position, Hakkinen won the sprint to the first bend. Ironically, had it been not for the Finn’s mistake, the public would not have known anything about the drivers’ pre-race agreement.

Hakkinen’s victory proved his first step towards the 1998 world championship crown. Coulthard crossed the finishing line in second, with Wiliams’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen third, ahead of Eddie Irvine (Ferrari), Jacques Villenueve (Williams) and Johnny Herbert (Sauber).

Accusations that McLaren consistently favoured Hakkinen over Coulthard persisted until Hakkinen’s retirement at the end of 2001. Perhaps one day, when he has resigned from McLaren for good, Ron Dennis might find some spare time and dedicate it to writing a book about the times he spent at the helm of one of F1’s most successful outfits.

I, and millions of other passionate F1 fans, would be fascinated to read Dennis’s take on how this controversial race came about.

1998 Australian Grand Prix results

1998 F1 season statistics

Lewis Hamilton's version of events in Melbourne are in dispute

Lewis Hamilton may have thought that Toyota’s press release announcing it would not appeal Jarno Trulli’s 25 second penalty was the end of the matter.

But according to a report in Auto Motor und Sport (translation here) Hamilton could still lose the third place he inherited from Trulli at Australia – and potentially a lot more.

Hamilton passed Trulli for third place during the safety car period after Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel’s crash. Amateur video evidence later showed Hamilton had done this legally, as Trulli had gone off the track at the time:

However there is not yet any footage of the moment Trulli passed Hamilton, which is at the heart of the stewards’ concerns.

The AMuS story claims Hamilton told a journalist after the race that he was instructed by McLaren to let Trulli past. But Hamilton either did not tell the stewards this, or told them it didn’t happen.

The stewards are now investigating what radio communication there was between Hamilton and the pits at the time, and whether Hamilton’s claim he had slowed down because he was examining his car’s display is true or not.

Toyota accepted they are not able to protest the decision for the same reason that McLaren were not allowed to protest Hamilton’s penalty at Spa last year. However the stewards may choose to investigate of their own volition. And if Hamilton is found to have lied or misled them, the punishment could be severe.

Or, failing that, this is just a strange German April Fools’ joke. What do you think?

Update @ 20:57, 4/1/09 – No April Fools’ joke – the FIA are officially investigating

According to Autosport the stewards are examining a new record of the McLaren radio transmission. The decision will be announced tomorrow, but it’s safe to assume they wouldn’t be calling for a fresh investigation if they hadn’t found something significant.

Update 2 – Thanks to Rob B for posting this recording of Toyota’s radio traffic from the final laps. If only we had McLaren’s too we could do the hearing ourselves!

Read more: Trulli penalised, Hamilton takes third (Update: Video of Hamilton’s pass)

Chaos breaks out at the start as Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello tangle

The late afternoon start for this year’s Australian Grand Prix gave a lovely colour to photographs from the race.

Here’s a selection of pictures including home hero Mark Webber waving to the crowd from a fire truck before the race, the first-lap pile-up, and the jubilant scenes among the Brawn team after the race.

More pictures from the Australian Grand Prix

• Australian GP pictures: Qualifying
• Australian GP Pictures: Practice
• F1 arrives at Melbourne (pictures)

More F1 pictures

Images (C) Ferrari spa, BMW ag, Toyota F1 World, Bridgestone, Getty Images, Force India F1 Team, Daimler, Renault / LAT, Williams / LAT

Jenson Button led all 58 laps of the Australian Grand Prix

After months of anticipation the first race of 2009 was a contest to savour and a result to remember. Jenson Button may have led every lap but Sebastian Vettel kept him honest throughout the race – before a controversial late clash with Robert Kubica.

Rubens Barrichello completed Brawn GP’s joy by taking second place, while Lewis Hamilton took a surprise third place from 18th on the grid.

Kovalainen out at the start

The Brawn cars had mixed fortunes at the start – Button motored serenely down to the first corner while Barrichello got bogged down and was swamped by the chasing field.

That included Heikki Kovalainen, who tagged the back of the Brawn GP car, setting off a chain reaction which also claimed Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld. All bar Barrichello headed for the pits, and Kovalainen’s damage proved terminal.

The Ferraris, with KERS primed and super soft tyres, made lightning starts. Felipe Massa pounced on Robert Kubica off the line, and slotted past Nico Rosberg at turn three as well. Kimi Raikkonen followed him through top take up fifth behind Kubica, with Rosberg bumped back to sixth.

Button, meanwhile, had checked out – dropping Vettel by a massive 3.9s on the first lap. But Vettel, running with several laps’ less fuel, was able to keep Button’s lead down to around five seconds.

Ferraris hit trouble

The Ferraris quickly ran into the shortcomings of the super-soft tyres: graining and the accompanying huge drop-off in performance. Rosberg launched an attack on Raikkonen on lap nine, squeezing by at turn one, allowing the chasing Barrichello to pounce. Barrichello clipped Raikkonen’s car, causing more damage to the front wing of his BGP001, but took fifth place off the 2007 champion.

Wasting no time, the red cars brought their pit stops forward. Raikkonen headed for the pits on the next lap to switch to the more durable medium compound. Massa followed on lap 11, as did Lewis Hamilton, who had also started one the super-soft tyres.

Hamilton had steered clear of the mayhem at the start to run 11th by lap three. Exploiting the brief performance of the super soft tyres and using his KERS boost he moved up to ninth by lap six, passing Nelson Piquet Jnr. But with the life gone from his tyres he had struggled to make an impression on Kazuki Nakajima’s Williams.

The other early stoppers were Jarno Trulli (lap ten) and Kubica (lap 12). Trulli, who had started from the pits along with team mate Timo Glock following their qualifying infringement, passed Hamilton for 14th shortly after his stop.

This left Button and Vettel at the front with Rosberg 27.3s behind thanks to spending so long stuck behind the struggling Massa. Behind him were Barrichello, Nakajima, Piquet, Sebastien Buemi and Giancalo Fisichella.

Nakajima triggers safety car

Vettel and Rosberg were the next to pit on lap 16, Rosberg losing time with a sticking front left wheel nut. Button responded by setting a new fastest lap of the race in anticipation of his first pit stop.

But on lap 18 Nakajima lost control of his FW31 on the kerb at the exit of turn four, and hit the barriers hard. The safety car was summoned while marshals retrieved the wrecked Williams.

Under last year’s rules this would have pole-axed Button’s chances, leaving him unable to pit for several laps. Thankfully, the ‘pit lane closure rules’ were wisely dropped over the winter, and Button was able to take his pit stop as normal before queueing up behind the safety car. This took rather a long time, however, and the interruption dragged on even longer as the lapped cars were allowed to re-take their positions.

Button led Vettel at the restart, both putting off their stints on super soft tyres until the final phase of the race. Then came the trio that had already used the green-striped tyres: Massa, Kubica and Raikkonen.

Piquet tried to pass Rosberg for sixth on the outside of turn one at the restart, but was caught out by his cold brakes and tyres, and spun into retirement. Team mate Fernando Alonso, meanwhile, took 12th place off Glock, who had also just been passed by Hamilton.

Massa made an early return to the pits on lap 31, having fuelled aggressively short at his first stop in a bid to get back to the front. After taking on enough fuel to reach the finish the Brazilian driver fell towards the back of the pack from where he struggled to mount a recovery.

On lap 45 Massa’s F60 slowed and his race was over. This was a double blow for Ferrari – two laps earlier Raikkonen had crashed into the barriers on the exit of turn 13. The constructors’ champions start their title defence with no points after one race.

Vettel and Kubica crash

Kubica’s pace late in the race suggested Ferrari’s gamble of starting on the super soft tyres might have paid off had they gone the distance. Vettel made his final pit stop on lap 45, and Button came in two laps later, losing vital time as the team had to switch between refuelling hoses.The leading pair were now both on the super soft tyres and Kubica, on mediums, was catching them rapidly.

The stage was set for a grandstand finish with the leading trio covered by just a few seconds. On lap 56 Kubica pounced on Vettel at turn three and the pair collided. Vettel was surprisingly apologetic afterwards for incident in which both drivers could have given each other a bit more space. Instead both lost their front wings, and crashed separately at turn five. Vettel tried to keep his three-wheeled car going, but eventually pulled up. He was handed a grid penalty for the next race at Malaysia for the crash, and a $50,000 fine for driving around the track on three wheels.

This remarkable turn of events robbed us of a nail-biting chase to the flag, and brought the final curtain down on the whole race. The safety car was sent out to recover the wreckage and there was no time to get the race running again.

Kubica and Vettel collide, Vettel handed penalty (Video)

Hamilton inherits third

Meanwhile, unseen by the TV cameras, Trulli went off the track, losing what was now third place to Hamilton. Trulli then re-passed Hamilton after the safety car had arrived on track, and was later handed a 25-second penalty by the stewards which demoted him from third to 12th.

Trulli’s form at Melbourne was quite atypical: out-qualified by his much heavier team mate, but in superb form on race day, he deserved much more from the weekend. He later claimed Hamilton had slowed and he had no choice but to pass the McLaren.

Hamilton inherited third place against all expectations, and was the highest-placed KERS-equipped finisher. Glock took fourth after deftly passing Alonso around the outside of turn four on lap 51, having practised the move on Buemi two laps earlier.

Rosberg was sixth, a disappointment after his qualifying form, having lost time at crucial moments with his pit stop problem, the clash with Piquet, and being passed by Massa on lap one.

Buemi took seventh place on his debut, an ominous sign for team mate Bourdais, who finished eighth. Adrian Sutil was ninth after a spirited battle with team mate Fisichella. The Italian was 11th behind Heidfeld and no doubt rued missing his pit box when he pitted during the first safety car period, losing a lot of time.

Webber was a suitably unlucky 13th after another miserable home race, and Vettel, Kubica and Raikkonen were all classified behind him despite having stopped.

But this was a Grand Prix with a feel-good result. For two long months it looked as though Honda’s feverish work on its RA109 would reap no reward. But, re-born as the Mercedes-powered BGP 001, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello scored an historic result that would have been totally unthinkable just a few weeks ago.

That said, their margin of victory was nothing like as great as the pre-race form suggested. The signs are very good that we could be in for a close, competitive and exciting championship. Roll on Malaysia next weekend!

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello lead Brawn GP in historic debut 1-2

Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel clashed in dramatic fashion in the dying stages of the Australian Grand Prix.

Kubica was catching Vettel and leader Jenson Button at the time and looked set to mount an improbable bid for victory – instead his race and Vettel’s ended in the barriers.

Kubica had a clear run at Vettel and tried to pass him around the outside of turn three. But the pair banged wheels, and both ripped off part of their front wings.

Both continued but both got no further than turn five. Vettel put his wheels on the grass on the way into the corner and clattered into the barriers. Kubica simply under-steered straight on and met the same end.

Then followed the bizarre sight of Vettel trying to drag his now three-wheeled Red Bull around the track. At first the other cars hesitated to pass him as the safety car had been deployed, but Vettel eventually gave up and pulled his wrecked RB5 to a halt.

The drama meant the race ended behind the safety car for the first time since the 1999 Canadian Grand Prix. Vettel and Kubica were classified 14th and 15th.

Update: Sebastian Vettel has been handed a ten place grid drop penalty for the Malaysian Grand Prix for the incident. To my mind, it looked like a standard racing accident and wouldn’t have apportioned blame on either side. But Vettel immediately apologised so he must have considered himself at fault.

Jarno Trulli practising for the Australian Grand Prix

The first practice sessions at Melbourne gave us a chance to see the new F1 cars being driven in anger for the first time.

Here’s a selection of pictures of each of the drivers getting to grips with the tricky new cars and the slippery Albert Park circuit this morning.

If you’re in Melbourne for the Grand Prix this weekend you can share your pictures with us by uploading them to the F1 Fanatic drop.io.

Images (C) BMW ag, Force India F1 Team, Getty Images, Bridgestone, Renault / LAT, Williams / LAT, Toyota F1 World

Mark Webber's been playing on the beach

The F1 drivers have been kept busy since they arrived in Melbourne: playing football, poker training, and building F1 cars out of sand.

Here’s a selection of pictures showing what some of the drivers and teams have been up to in Australia. Those ones of Nick Heidfeld at Melbourne zoo are just begging for a comedy caption…

Images (C) Toyota F1 World, Brawn GP, Getty Images, Force India F1 Team, BMW ag, Renault / LAT

We will be live blogging throughout each of the practice sessions, and will open the qualifying and race live blogs about an hour before the action gets under way, and keep going until after the press conferences.

For details of when each session is on see here: Australian Grand Prix 2009

For more information on how to get involved in the live blogs see here: F1 live blogs 2009

Click on the ‘reader information’ button below for more details on how live blogging works. Not sure if live blogging is for you? Have a look at the fun we had during the last one: Brazilian Grand Prix 2008 Live Blog.

Friday free practice 1

Friday free practice 2

Saturday free practice 3

Qualifying

Race

F1 live

The Australian Grand Prix is expected to see three days of dry weather. Melbourne will experience temperatures in the low 20s (C) each day according to the Australian Government Bureau of Meterology.

Weather.com and Weather Underground agree with the forecast for a dry weekend with temperatures no more than 24C.

The weather in the state of Victoria has been in the news this year after a series of appalling bush fires claimed hundred of lives. The Australian Red Cross is still accepting donations to support communities affected by the disaster which you can send here: Australian Red Cross.

Thanks to Toby for the tip.

Read more

• Australian Grand Prix live blogs
• Australian Grand Prix TV times