Australia 2012 - Race results - A frantic race leads to a more familiar podium
Published by Christine
A chaotic Australian Grand Prix kicked off 2012 with familiar faces at the top of the podium, some interesting pit stop strategies, retirements aplenty, and some DRS action along with non-DRS overtaking. The race was bookmarked with first and last lap chaos, and punctuated with a Safety Car in the middle. Caterham suffered a double DNF with both cars troubled with power steering issues. McLaren had a good run from the start, but Vettel wasn't going to give up easily.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Stops |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best | Jenson Button | Vodafone McLaren Mercedes | 1:29.187 | Lap 56 |
| 1 | Jenson Button | Vodafone McLaren Mercedes | 1:34:09.565 | 2 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing | +2.1 | 2 |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | Vodafone McLaren Mercedes | +4.0 | 2 |
| 4 | Mark Webber | Red Bull Racing | +4.5 | 2 |
| 5 | Fernando Alonso | Scuderia Ferrari | +21.5 | 2 |
| 6 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber F1 Team | +36.7 | 2 |
| 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Lotus F1 Team | +38.0 | 2 |
| 8 | Sergio Pérez | Sauber F1 Team | +39.4 | 1 |
| 9 | Daniel Ricciardo | Scuderia Toro Rosso | +39.5 | 3 |
| 10 | Paul di Resta | Sahara Force India F1 Team | +39.7 | 2 |
| 11 | Jean-Éric Vergne | Scuderia Toro Rosso | +39.8 | 2 |
| 12 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team | +57.6 | 2 |
| 13 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams F1 Team | +1 lap | 2 |
| 14 | Timo Glock | Marussia F1 Team | +1 lap | 2 |
| 15 | Charles Pic | Marussia F1 Team | +5 laps | 4 |
| 16 | Bruno Senna | Williams F1 Team | +6 laps | 4 |
| DNF | Felipe Massa | Scuderia Ferrari | Lap 46 | 4 |
| DNF | Heikki Kovalainen | Caterham F1 Team | Lap 38 | 4 |
| DNF | Vitaly Petrov | Caterham F1 Team | Lap 34 | 1 |
| DNF | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team | Lap 10 | 1 |
| DNF | Romain Grosjean | Lotus F1 Team | Lap 1 | 0 |
| DNF | Nico Hülkenberg | Sahara Force India F1 Team | Lap 0 | 0 |
| DNS | Pedro de la Rosa | HRT Formula 1 Team | 0 | |
| DNS | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT Formula 1 Team | 0 |
