Sebastian Vettel took the chequered flag at first race of the 2018 season in Melbourne, holding off rival Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton led the Grand Prix until a virtual safety car allowed Vettel to get ahead following his pitstop.

Kimi Raikkonen completed the trio podium finishers, keeping a cool head to restrain local hero Daniel Ricciardo. Ricciardo started the race from eighth on the grid after serving a three-place grid penalty that was handed to him on Friday evening, but managed to recover to fourth.

McLaren got its 2018 season off to a strong start as it enters its first year running with Renault power unit. Despite qualifying outside the top ten, double-world champion Fernando Alonso crossed the line in fifth place, matching his best result since returning to McLaren.

It was a frustrating day for Max Verstappen, whose race was hampered early on when he suffered from overheating tyres. The Dutchman started the race on the super softs rather than the ultra softs, and spun at Turn 1 attempting to chase down Kevin Magnussen in the first phase of the race.

Nico Hulkenberg finished exactly where he started, coming home in seventh place. Valtteri Bottas recovered to eighth after starting from fifteenth on the grid. The Finn had a tall order on his hands after crashing out in Q3 on Saturday.

Stoffel Vandoorne crossed the line in ninth to take his first points finish since the Malaysian Grand Prix of last season. Despite feeling nauseous towards the end of the race, Carlos Sainz took the final point on offer, keeping Sergio Perez at bay.  

There was heartbreak for Haas, who was running inside the top five after the start of the race. Both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean retired from the event after they both were released from their pit boxes with one tyre not attached properly.  

Magnussen retired first, followed three laps later by Grosjean. Grosjean parked his car on the side of the track after Turn 2, which caused race control to release the virtual safety car. Before that, Raikkonen, Hamilton and Verstappen had all pitted for soft tyres.

Vettel decided to stay out longer, and took advantage when the virtual safety car was deployed. The German flew into the pits and bolted on a fresh set of tyres that were seven laps newer than rival Hamilton's. Due to the reduced pace that Hamilton was travelling at, Vettel was able to gain time in the pits and take the lead of the race. 

Bottas also gained out of the virtual safety car, as his progress up to that point had been slow. Starting from fifteenth, he was only in P13 when the call to neutralise the race was made. However, following his stop, he emerged in the top ten.

The full safety car was then called upon as a tractor had to take to the circuit to remove Grosjean's car. Under the safety car, Verstappen was forced to hand back a position to Alonso, as the former overtook Alonso after the white line as the Spaniard left the pitlane.

The safety car pulled back into the pitlane at the end of lap 31, and the green flag was waved for Vettel and Hamilton to go head to head until the finish. Hamilton kept on Vettel's tail for much of the remainder of the race, before a mistake with ten laps to caused him to drop back by a couple of seconds.

Hamilton then closed back up in just two laps, but threw in the towel and relaxed off the rear wing of Vettel, which allowed the German to breeze to the finish and take his 48th victory in Formula 1.

Fergal Walsh