Nico Roseberg won a dramatic season-opening grand prix in Australia this morning, leading champion Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel third.
Hamilton had started on pole with Rosberg second but Vettel and Ferreri team mate Kimi Raikkonen made a brilliant start to sweep past the two Mercedes.
Hamilton was down to seventh at one time, but things started to unravel for the Ferraris at the pit stops, with a slow tyre change for Vettel and poor tyre choice.
Raikkonen, meanwhile, saw his efforts go up in smoke with an electrical fire.
The race was red flagged (paused) for a few minutes after a horrific crash which saw Fernando Alonso's McLaren catapult into the air, overturn and crash into the barriers while trying to overtake Gutierrez. Both drivers managed to walk would of their cars but the McLaren was totally destroyed.
Despite their vaunted progress, McLaren still had a disappointing race, with Button in the surviving car ending up in the penultimate place.
It was, however, a remarkable race for new team Haas, with Grosjean coming in sixth.
The points finishers were: Rosberg, Hamilton, Vettel, Ricciardo, Massa, Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Bottas, Sainz, Verstappen.
POST RACE COMMENTS
It was a great race, l loved that we had to come behind," Hamilton said. "It's impossible to follow here and I'm just glad nobody was hurt in the crash. I've had much worse in the first race and l'd take this as a bonus after being as low as seventh. There's a still long, long way to go."
"Thanks very much for the support. Great weekend, thank you for the team for an incredible car, it was unreal today. To beat Ferraris was great. We absolutely loved it and I'm super excited," said Rosberg.
Ferrari chief Maurizio Arrivabene said Ferrari had adopted an aggressive strategy and it didn't work. At the beginning of the race we were quick, he said.
"The red flag didn't help us but we still had our chance," says Vettel. "We didn't expect what both of them did by going onto the hardest tyre. We tried to be aggressive but it didn't work," said Vettel.