Current F1 World Champion Jenson Button won the Australian Grand Prix today, his second race for team McLaren. Button won the action packed Grand Prix after making an early split decision around moving to dry tyres, the first driver to do so, and lived to tell that tale with the greatest of outcomes.

Many wrote off his chances as he came out of the pits, after Button skidded into the gravel trap on turn 3, but that soon disappeared as the track came to him and he made his way through the pack.

Many had complained about the dull opening race in Bahrain 2 weeks ago, and Australia did not disappoint. From lights out the action was there, light rain and a slippery track with Fernando Alonso cutting up Button on turn 1, causing his Ferrari to bump into Michael Schumacher, and then spin 180 degrees. Both drivers ended up at the back of the pack.

Shortly after the Alonso incident, Kamui Kobayashi lost his front wing under the front of his car causing him to smash into Sebastian Buemi and Nico Hulkenberg. All three drivers were out of the race, causing an immediate safety car.

Once action resumed Lewis Hamilton and Robert Kubica looked like the drivers on the move. Hamilton (starting from 11th) was already up 4 or 5 places by the safety car, and soon made mincemeat of his team mate.

However, Button came out on top, making a critical decision on tyres at exactly the right time, taking full advantage. Subsequently everyone followed suit including race leader Sebastian Vettel. Button’s quick thinking got him back up rankings upto P2 by the time all the pit stops had completed.

Shortly after the picture changed for the Red Bull’s with race leader Vettel retiring after what seemed to be a left front break pad failure. This gave Button pole position, and he kept that until the chequered flag.

Around 40 laps in many teams decided to come in for some fresh dry tyres as the rears were going off, however race leader Button, the two Ferrari’s and Kubica allotted to stay out on what they had. At this point this again seemed like the wrong decision, with Hamilton and Mark Webber, now on fresh tyres, quickly catching them up.

With 10 laps to go both Hamilton and Webber were up behind the two Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Alonso in P3 and P4 respectively, however Hamilton was really struggling to get past. Hamilton began to rue the decision made by his McLaren team to bring him in for fresh tyres, coming onto the radio demanding who had made the decision.

Shortly after, with 3 laps to go Hamilton had his opportunity to overtake Alonso, however the Ferrari driver quickly shut the McLaren driver down. Unfortunately for Hamilton, a speedy Webber was close behind and misjudged the breaking distance, piling into the McLaren at speed. This forced both cars into the gravel trap, with Webber losing his front wing.

This mistake by Webber was the final insult to a torrid race for the Australian. After starting in P2, Webber struggled throughout the race seemingly taking 1 step forward, but 2 steps back. This ultimately led to Webber finishing a measly 9th spot, only bringing home 2 points for Red Bull who up until lights out appeared to be on for a 1-2 finish for the team.

Australia was all about the McLaren boys though, with Button’s quick thinking, and Hamilton’s heroic battle to push through – the excitement of the race revolved around these two. Hamilton made some spectacular overtaking moves, taking Nico Rosberg in the seemingly unusual turn 12. It could have likely been a McLaren 1-2 after the Red Bull’s faded, however the second pit stop after all did ruin Hamilton’s chances.

An exciting race after the disappointment of Bahrain – however we have the weather to thank for a lot of that. It clearly caused the strategies of the teams to change everywhere, and added that extra piece of unexpected action to the race.

It’s still too early to tell whether the new no-refuelling rules have ruined the excitement of F1 for the immediate future, let’s get a few more races under our belt to make a decision on that.