MOTORSPORT: Ferrari laughs last and loudest

Our man Dan came to the fore, but for the second year in a row the Australian Grand Prix was Ferrari’s to celebrate.

Sebastian Vettel had warned Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton – after the stunning Saturday qualifying lap the Brit said was intended to “wipe the smile” off the German’s face – that what goes around comes around.

So it was on Sunday – with a timely piece of luck for Ferrari.

It came as a result of the caution period after the second of American team Haas’ cars dropped out within moments of each other, both with a loose wheel.

Hamilton, retarded by the yellow signals after having had the race in his grasp, saw Vettel appear from his pitstop ahead of him.

The Brit had been wrong-footed – Mercedes blamed a software glitch that miscalculated the margin – and it proved to be game over.

Melbourne’s Albert Park isn’t great for overtaking among similarly-matched cars and Hamilton spent the rest of the day on Vettel’s tail – as Daniel Ricciardo did behind Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari in the latter stages.

Ricciardo had earlier shown himself again to be F1’s ‘master passer’ but had to settle for fourth but with the fastest lap of the race – from eighth on the grid, his starting position worsened three places because of a ‘speeding offence’ during a red flag in Friday practice.

It means the record books still don’t show an Australian with a podium finish at an Australian F1 Grand Prix, although Ricciardo celebrated a second place in 2014 only to be stripped off it hours later because of a fuel-flow irregularity in the first race of the V6 hybrid era.

He flies to Perth today for a little R&R feeling he has “a very fast race car” in which to fight the Ferraris and Mercs in the remaining 20 GPs this year – the next in Bahrain on April 8.

“I think we’re pretty close with Ferrari and our race pace is strong, so we just need to get a few more tenths [of a second a lap] out of qualifying and then we should be looking good,” Ricciardo said.

“Being so close to the podium and getting fastest lap is definitely an encouraging way to start the season.”

Time will tell – probably sooner rather than later – whether it’s enough to keep the carsales.com.au global ambassador at Red Bull beyond this year.

While he was outqualified on Saturday by teammate Max Verstappen, already signed up by Red Bull for the medium-term future on mega money, Ricciardo again proved the more mature, polished racer, while the Dutch wonderboy spun 360 degrees by the 10th lap after scraping the floor of his car on the track verge and wound up sixth.

As much as Mercedes, predominantly, and Ferrari will be the measuring stick again this year, Red Bull could soon find itself under challenge from a revived McLaren, now with the same Renault power unit and, with a little luck, both cars in the top 10 yesterday as forecast rain held off.

Fernando Alonso was fifth in McLaren’s best race for yonks and he’s in a very positive frame of mind after three horror years with Honda power behind him.

The other big improver so far has been Haas, with both its cars in the top 10 in qualifying and as high as fourth and fifth in the race before the embarrassment of cross-threaded wheel nuts put first Kevin Magnussen and then Romain Grosjean out.

So many new teams have failed in F1 history, but Haas came in three years ago with a proper budget courtesy of Gene Haas’ fortune from industrial tools and with a Ferrari tie-up that must now be the envy of others.

By comparison, long-established Williams and Force India, which has been through several incarnations, produced little in Melbourne with Mercedes power.

Hamilton’s Merc factory outfit teammate Valtteri Bottas botched qualifying with a spectacular crash and, after going back another five places on the grid for a gearbox change, did well to be eighth at the chequered flag.

Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso has little to show yet, after promising pre-season testing, from picking up the Honda power unit.

All six Renault-powered cars in the field finished in the top 10, although none where it really mattered.

The upshot from the weekend is that, both vying for their fifth world titles, Vettel has begun his campaign with his third Oz GP victory while Hamilton departs Melbourne still with only two wins from a record seven pole positions at Albert Park.

They look like being the main players again, but there’s one thing Australian fans can count on – our man Dan will be giving it everything his RB14 allows him.