Australian GP: Comfortable win for Nico Rosberg

The sound of the new V6 engines may be too much of a whimper for most tastes, but F1’s new turbo era has started with a dramatic and head-spinning bang with the two pre-season title favourites retiring within five laps, McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen claiming a podium on his F1 debut, and Nico Rosberg delivering an emphatic display of Mercedes’ strength to win the Australian GP by over twenty seconds.

Alas for Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, there was too much of whimper, however, with both the 2014 favourite and the reigning World Champion forced into an early exit even before F1’s brave new world had fully dawned.

While debate rages about the full merits of the sport’s dramatic rules revolution, there’s no dispute that F1 looks, sounds and feels very different. There’s a new frontrunning team, too, with the Mercedes in a class of its own as Rosberg strolled to an easy victory after sweeping past the stricken Hamilton off the line.

Click here for more

Below the full results:

Pos Driver Nationality Team Points
1 Nico Rosberg German Mercedes 25
2 Daniel Ricciardo Australian Red Bull Racing-Renault 18
3 Kevin Magnussen Danish McLaren-Mercedes 15
4 Jenson Button British McLaren-Mercedes 12
5 Fernando Alonso Spanish Ferrari 10
6 Valtteri Bottas Finnish Williams-Mercedes 8
7 Nico Hulkenberg German Force India-Mercedes 6
8 Kimi Räikkönen Finnish Ferrari 4
9 Jean-Eric Vergne French STR-Renault 2
10 Daniil Kvyat Russian STR-Renault 1
11 Sergio Perez Mexican Force India-Mercedes 0
12 Adrian Sutil German Sauber-Ferrari 0
13 Esteban Gutierrez Mexican Sauber-Ferrari 0
14 Max Chilton British Marussia-Ferrari 0
15 Jules Bianchi French Marussia-Ferrari 0
16 Romain Grosjean French Lotus-Renault 0
17 Pastor Maldonado Venezuelan Lotus-Renault 0
18 Marcus Ericsson Swedish Caterham-Renault 0
19 Sebastian Vettel German Red Bull Racing-Renault 0
20 Lewis Hamilton British Mercedes 0
21 Felipe Massa Brazilian Williams-Mercedes 0
22 Kamui Kobayashi Japanese Caterham-Renault 0