Amid capricious conditions in Melbourne, which brought periodic bursts of
rain, the race was never less than riveting as Raikkonen pushed and Red Bull
struggled to maintain their peerless qualifying pace. The greatest surprise
were Force India, as Adrian Sutil twice seized the lead in the ever-shifting
order, with both the German and Paul di Resta finishing inside the top
eight.
From the outset it was clear that this would not be another exhibition of Red
Bull supremacy, as Mark Webber slipped on the first corner from second to
seventh. Raikkonen rapidly took advantage, as did the Ferrari pairing of
Alonso and Felipe Massa, underlining a significant increase in the
*Scuderia*’s competitiveness from 12 months ago.
With Lotus managing his tyres with maximum care, Raikkonen assumed the lead on
lap 23 as the rest of the frontrunners made their second stop. His car held
up brilliantly under strain, just as it had in 2012, when he was the one
driver to complete every race. Vettel, by contrast, began to suffer with his
tyre wear and fell backwards, despite possessing demonstrably the quickest
car.
Mercedes experimented with two stops for Hamilton, who briefly looked as if he
had a chance of the win, but the tyre degradation was too great and he was
forced for a third time into the pits. Alonso gamely gave chase in the final
laps but Raikkonen, sensing his moment, held firm. Last March he had
presented a T-shirt to the Australian audience bearing the words, “I
know what I’m doing”, and this was a performance to encapsulate the
truth of the words.