AUTOSPORT's Australian GP driver ratings

1 SEBASTIAN VETTEL
Red Bull-Renault RB10

Start: 12th
Finish: DNF
Strategy: 0 stops (medium/retired)

Rating: 6

Vettel had a strong Friday, showing just how far Red Bull had come since the end of testing by producing convincing long-run pace. But he struggled on Saturday after a software change that affected the torque delivery.

A yellow flag caused by Kimi Raikkonen's crash on his key Q2 lap cost him a place in Q3, and his race was doomed from the off when an engine problem manifested itself.

Went well when he could during a difficult weekend.

3 DANIEL RICCIARDO
Red Bull-Renault RB10

Start: 2nd
Finish: DSQ
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 9

Ricciardo's calling card during the past few years has been stellar qualifying performances.

His lap to take second on the grid on intermediate rubber was superb, particularly in the wetter middle sector that allowed him to showcase his car control.

In the race, he drove immaculately, responding to Kevin Magnussen's late challenge to consolidate second.

The fact he was disqualified for exceeding the maximum permitted fuel-flow rate does not undermine the quality of Ricciardo's performance. Great start to his Red Bull career.

6 NICO ROSBERG
Mercedes F1 W05

Start: 3rd
Finish: 1st
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 9

Qualifying result was disappointing, but had the timing been better he would have managed another Q3 lap and got onto the front row.

His race performance was immaculate, balancing up the various demands of managing the fuel with keeping the tyres in their operating window and keeping a vice-like grip on the lead.

Yes, he had a significant pace advantage, but he still had to do the job.

The question is, could he have beaten Lewis Hamilton as the Friday long runs hinted was possible?

44 LEWIS HAMILTON
Mercedes F1 W05

Start: 1st
Finish: DNF
Strategy: 0 stops (soft/retired)

Rating: 9

Didn't miss a beat despite losing most of practice one.

Hamilton's qualifying lap was not flawless, with a big slide exiting Turn 6 costing him perhaps a couple of tenths.

But it was impressive as for most of the lap he kept the car under control in tricky conditions to take his 32nd F1 pole.

On the laps to the grid, it became clear one of the six cylinders in his engine was sick, meaning he never had any chance to show what he could do in the race.

7 KIMI RAIKKONEN
Ferrari F14 T

Start: 11th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 6

Right from the off, Raikkonen looked ill at ease with the Ferrari in Melbourne and appeared to be struggling to commit to the corners on turn in like team-mate Fernando Alonso could.

He talked of set-up problems that will take a while to resolve, which appear to be related to front-end grip and the level of feedback offered by the front axle.

He had several lock-ups in the race and banked solid points, but couldn't quite get on Alonso's level.

14 FERNANDO ALONSO
Ferrari F14 T

Start: 5th
Finish: 4th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 8

Alonso will have found his situation during the Australian GP weekend eerily familiar. A car that is thereabouts, rather than there, on pace, capable of finishing solidly in the top five and nicking a podium with a fair wind but not a serious threat to the fastest cars.

Played the long game while behind Nico Hulkenberg and was unable to attack on the straights.

The struggle to get ahead of the Force India was what allowed Jenson Button to deny him a podium.

8 ROMAIN GROSJEAN
Lotus-Renault E22

Start: 22nd (pits)
Finish: DNF
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/soft/retired)

Rating: 6

It's almost impossible to make any kind of judgement about the performances of either Lotus driver during the weekend, given the litany of problems.

Grosjean barely completed a lap in two of the three free-practice session and went into qualifying in a car so undercooked that it was only ever going to be slowest.

To his credit, Grosjean did what he could in the race but while he looked a little quicker than Pastor Maldonado it is difficult to make a fair comparison.

13 PASTOR MALDONADO
Lotus-Renault E22

Start: 21st
Finish: DNF
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/soft/retired)

Rating: 6

Maldonado managed one more lap than Grosjean in free practice, but since not many plus one is still not very many, that was hardly anything to write home about.

He didn't even get the chance to do a serious qualifying lap thanks to the car not being ready for the dry spell in Q1, but he entertained the crowd by at least attempting a fast lap on slicks in the damp and predictably ending up off the road.

Any comparison with Grosjean's performance is meaningless.

22 JENSON BUTTON
McLaren-Mercedes MP4-29

Start: 10th
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 8

Was one of the three world champions who failed to make the cut for Q3 after being caught out by the late yellow flag caused by Raikkonen's shunt, although if he had only found an extra tenth and a half on his first run he would still have made it through.

But drove characteristically well in the race, particularly in responding instantly to being told the safety car was being deployed, making a late cut into the pits and buying himself three places.

20 KEVIN MAGNUSSEN
McLaren-Mercedes MP4-29

Start: 4th
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 10

Some drivers just look the part when they step up to Formula 1.

Magnussen, who became one of only nine drivers to finish in the top two on their debut, impressed with his ability to hustle the McLaren during practice and rain-hit qualifying to start fourth.

The one blot on his copybook was applying the throttle too enthusiastically seconds after the start.

He caught the "scary" moment and drove immaculately to convert what momentarily looked like becoming one of the most embarrassing debuts to one of the greatest.

27 NICO HULKENBERG
Force India-Mercedes VJM07

Start: 7th
Finish: 6th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 8

Given that the Mercedes, Williams, Red Bull and Ferrari all proved to be faster cars in Melbourne, Hulkenberg's performance was probably as strong as it realistically could have been.

He qualified well and set a decent laptime on intermediate rubber in tricky conditions to start on the fourth row and then kept Alonso behind him in the race, but was powerless to keep him behind in the second round of pitstops.

Nothing he could have done to finish higher.

11 SERGIO PEREZ
Force India-Mercedes VJM07

Start: 16th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 3 stops (soft/medium/soft/soft)

Rating: 5

Friday was encouraging, but having missed the best of track conditions during Q2 Perez locked up and went into the gravel at Turn 3 on his last lap.

He was hit in the rear by Esteban Gutierrez on the opening lap and lost time crawling back to the pits.

The safety car brought him back into it, but he struggled to make progress, spending too long behind the other Sauber of Adrian Sutil.

a point after Ricciardo's exclusion was a bonus after a disappointing weekend.

21 ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ
Sauber-Ferrari C33

Start: 20th
Finish: 12th
Strategy: 2 stops (medium/soft/soft)

Rating: 4

Struggled with traffic during Q1 and his pace during his first (and only) run in dry conditions wasn't enough to reach the second phase of qualifying.

A five-place penalty for a gearbox change wasn't as big a setback as it might have been, as it put him back only one position, but hitting Perez on the first lap was costly.

Drove sensibly after that to finish just six seconds behind Sutil and in the territory you would expect a Sauber to be right now.

99 ADRIAN SUTIL
Sauber-Ferrari C33

Start: 13th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 7

There is a feeling at Sauber that the car is fundamentally good, but it has yet to get on top of the challenges of the new engines.

Sutil was never going to be a serious Q3 threat, but got through the first segment of qualifying without fuss.

Drove a good race, including a marathon 35-lap first stint on softs and going to the finish on mediums, but didn't have the machinery to do much better despite holding Perez up for longer than he perhaps should have been able to.

25 JEAN-ERIC VERGNE
Toro Rosso-Renault STR9

Start: 6th
Finish: 8th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 8

It has been a long time since Vergne scored points, 12 races in fact, so to go to Melbourne and deliver a solid eighth place after a strong qualifying performance was exactly what he needed.

There are a few caveats though. He was given a harder time by his rookie team-mate than might be expected given their relative experience and did have an off in the race that handed a position to Raikkonen.

A good weekend, but could have been even better.

26 DANIIL KVYAT
Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR9

Start: 7th
Finish: 9th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 9

Helmut Marko has always said that Kvyat's mental strength was key to his early promotion, and for the underprepared Russian to perform so unflappably was testament to that.

Both qualifying and the race offered plenty of opportunity to make a mistake, and aside from glancing the wall when he lost control between Turns 10 and 11 in Q3, Kvyat kept it together.

He was quick too - fast enough to end up just two places behind Vergne in qualifying and push him in the race. A very convincing debut.

19 FELIPE MASSA
Williams-Mercedes FW36

Start: 9th
Finish: DNF
Strategy: 0 stops (soft/retired)

Rating: 6

Massa is very obviously revelling in new surroundings at Williams, but it's difficult to judge exactly where he was relative to his team-mate.

The pair set near-identical times in wet qualifying, with Massa shading it, but there was no chance to discover whether the race-pace advantage that Bottas might have had was real thanks to Kamui Kobayashi's Caterham intervening.

But had he survived the first corner, there's every chance Massa would have finished second even from ninth on the grid.

77 VALTTERI BOTTAS
Williams-Renault FW36

Start: 15th
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 7

There was so much that was good about Bottas's weekend. But with one tiny mistake he threw away a certain first podium finish.

Bottas drove with gusto all weekend, charging from 15th to sixth in the early laps and climbing from 16th after his blunder to sixth on the road by the finish.

He has to be marked down heavily for the mistake given what it cost, especially as he'd come so close to doing the same thing at least once earlier in the race.

17 JULES BIANCHI
Marussia-Ferrari MR-03

Start: 18th
Finish: Not classified
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 6

Car problems at key moments ruined both qualifying and the race for Bianchi. Gearbox glitches forced him to make constant settings adjustments during Q1 and he set his time in slow-shift safe mode, meaning the half-second deficit to Chilton was not representative.

In the race, the engine shut down on the grid and he rejoined too many laps down to be classified.

Looked quicker than Chilton in race conditions, but difficult to compare because he was not limited in terms of fuel use.

4 MAX CHILTON
Marussia-Ferrari MR-03

Start: 17th
Finish: 13th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/soft/medium)

Rating: 6

A Q2 slot was likely there for the taking for Chilton, but he lost a couple of tenths trying to take Turn 5 flat.

He outqualified team-mate Bianchi, but this wasn't a valid comparison as the Frenchman's Q1 was hindered by gearbox problems.

Chilton's race looked over before it began when the car died on the grid while doing a bite point find and he was stuck in gear. But he rejoined and drove solidly to notch up his best F1 finish.

9 MARCUS ERICSSON
Caterham-Renault CT05

Start: 19th
Finish: DNF
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/soft/retired)

Rating: 8

The Swede did not enjoy the best of preparation for his grand prix debut, with just 286 laps in pre-season testing and electronic and then hydraulic problems ruining his Friday.

Yet in wet qualifying he acquitted himself well, lapping four hundredths off Gutierrez's Sauber.

In the chaotic early laps, he showed none of the penchant for getting involved in incidents that sometimes blighted his GP2 career and climbed as high as 11th early on.

Loss of oil pressure curtailed a very respectable debut in difficult circumstances.

21 KAMUI KOBAYASHI
Caterham-Renault CT05

Start: 14th
Finish: DNF
Strategy: 0 stops (soft/retired)

Rating: 7

Kobayashi completed a grand total of one lap on Friday and nobody would have bet a Yen on him or Caterham having a shot at Q2.

But the Japanese showed he has lost none of his tenacity during his 12 months away from F1 by making it through the first stage of qualifying.

The first-corner crash initially looked like a terrible blunder, but it soon became clear that a rear brake problem was to blame and he was powerless to avoid Massa.