Does it matter who wins the Australian GP?

During the Australian Grand Prix weekend, you will hear certain comments and soundbites again and again.

'The season is long', 'it's just one race', 'it's an unusual track', 'there will be a big upgrade package in Spain' and variations thereof will abound. And all will be true, truer than ever in the case of the length of the championship in this record year of 21 races.

These are the early season conventional wisdoms of F1. The equivalent of footballing cliches like 'a game of two halves' and 'take each match as it comes'.

But does that mean the first race doesn't really matter? Does it mean a championship protagonist can happily trundle home third, 30 seconds behind the leader, bank solid points and still be happy? Does it mean that season openers are poor indicators of what is to follow?

Those who are up against it at the start of the season will have you believe that. They argue this part of the year, which conveniently boils down to a block of four flyaway races before May's Spanish GP, almost doesn't matter. It's more a prologue than the first chapter of the real war.

History would beg to differ. And it would be right to do so. Let's have a look at some numbers.

Half of drivers' world championships have been won by whoever won the first points-paying race of the season. The table below shows that hanging around before taking your first win is no way to take the title:

Race of 1st win  Champion
      1             33
      2             12
      3             10
      4             4
      5             2
      6             3
      8             1
      14            1

For those wondering, the outlier in that list who won his first race of the championship season at the 14th attempt is Keke Rosberg (pictured) during the most anomalous of all seasons - 1982. In case anyone is feeling optimistic, unlike in 1982 11 drivers will not be winning races in 2016, no matter how much we would like that to happen.

Now, these figures are a little distorted. In the early years of the world championship there weren't many rounds. The 1950 F1 season effectively comprised only six races (the anomalous Indianapolis 500 was a seventh, irrelevant, round) and it wasn't until 1976 that the once-staple 16-race calendar first appeared. But even so, the story the numbers tell is accurate. And there are good reasons for this.

Let's say a team is banking on a massive upgrade to catapult it to the front in the fifth race of the season in Spain. Well, it probably will not want to take a look at the last time somebody won the world championship without winning one of the opening quartet of races. That was Alain Prost back in 1989, who took his first win in round five in Phoenix. And even then, he was in a McLaren that started the season as the strongest car and this was only about turning the tables on team-mate Ayrton Senna.

You can cite examples further down the grid of teams that have made a late surge recently - Force India last year with its B-spec car and Sauber's 2013 campaign - but that is much harder to pull off when you are up the sharp end.

Looking back at the opening race in isolation, six times in the past 10 years the eventual world champion has won the first round. That includes Lewis Hamilton last year, although it should be noted he did end a three-year streak of the first-race winner not taking the title.

That includes probably the most surprising season-opener of recent years, when Kimi Raikkonen and Lotus executed an ace tyre strategy to win the 2013 Australian GP. Far from prefacing a title tilt, Raikkonen didn't even end the season in the car.

History also shows that late surges to the title are few and far between. While the latest of all late shows came in 2010, when Sebastian Vettel took the points lead for the first time by winning the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, only seven times has a championship been won by a driver who only hit the front once into double-digit number of races.

When it comes to constructors' championship successes, since the inception of that contest for the 1958 season the title-winning team has won the opening race 60.3 per cent of the time. Look at only the last 20 years, and that figure rises to 70 per cent.

So it's clear that a strong start is very important. The question is, why?

First up is the obvious. There are rarely that many race winning cars and drivers in a season, so anyone with the machinery capable of winning the title should be in the mix for the first race.

The reason for the trend becoming stronger in recent years is that new cars tend to be introduced at the start of the season. So days of old when a new, standard-setting car might be introduced three or four races into the season after an unspectacular start are no longer relevant. The goalposts simply do not move as quickly or as widely anymore.

But there is more to it than that. Not only does a strong start get points on the board, but it transforms the dynamic of the whole season. Looking back at relatively recent history, it's remarkable how formidable such a lead can be. And the reason for that is the remarkable reliability of modern grand prix cars.

For an example of that, remember when Mercedes was unreliable in 2014? Well, it only posted five retirements in 38 attempts. Hardly catastrophic. This also makes it extremely difficult to make gains, because the opponent you are chasing down is more than likely still picking up big points.

In 2009, Jenson Button won six of the first seven races of the season for the phoenix-from-the-ashes Brawn team. So with 10 races remaining, he had a 31-point lead.

His results after that read as follows: sixth, fifth, seventh, seventh, retired, second, fifth, eighth, fifth, third. In nobody's world is that title winning form.

But it was enough for him to take the championship with a race to spare, 11 points clear of nearest challenger Vettel. It was an unusual season, with Vettel, Mark Webber and Brawn team-mate Rubens Barrichello all taking points off each other and it might have been different had one of those risen from the pack to score relentlessly, but Button was able to limp to the title thanks to his devastating start. This hardly ever happens in reverse.

When you are playing catch up, you lose control. Risks have to be taken by the chaser, while the leader can play it safe. Make a conservative call and give up a couple of points to avoid the risk of a blank score? Fine. But if you are trying to close a gap, you can't afford to do that.

Take the 2005 European GP at the Nurburgring, when Kimi Raikkonen and McLaren gambled on not making a stop to change a badly flatspotted tyre. He was 26 points behind Fernando Alonso (who had three wins, a second and a third in the first five races) and leading.

The gamble backfired and the suspension collapsed at Turn 1 on the last lap. Many criticised the decision, but the fact is Raikkonen could not afford to slip behind Alonso in the race. The risk had to be taken and it came so close to paying off. The certainty of losing further ground was a worse option than a win or bust approach.

Development decisions can also be compromised. When you have time in hand, you can be conservative. Try a new front wing in free practice and the figures are promising but perhaps a little shaky? If you've got a cushion, park it and go the tried and tested route. Playing catch up? Then take a risk that could also pay off big time, or prove costly.

All of this means whichever driver and team heads back from Australia with victory in its pocket is in a very good position. Granted, there are sometimes unusual results in the season opener, so none of this means Williams will win the world championship if Valtteri Bottas happens to win after Hamilton and Rosberg collide and take out Vettel in the process. But if the fastest car and driver wins, which happens more often than not, there is a very good chance they will still be on top come May.

So when you hear a driver or senior team figure claiming everything will be OK when they get to Spain (if new things aren't coming in Spain, this usually rolls forward to the British GP or even Singapore), ask yourself who they are trying to convince.

The best way to win in F1 has always been to get out front fast and stay there. That's why the Australian GP will, more likely than not, be worth far more than the 4.8 per cent of the championship season it really is.

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- The Autosport.com Team

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