Formula One: Rosberg beats Hamilton to win Australian GP
Nico Rosberg capitalised on a slow start off pole by world champion teammate Lewis Hamilton and superior tyre strategy over Ferrari to win the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.
The German won his fourth straight GP and 15th overall after stringing together the final three races of 2015 to beat his Mercedes rival Hamilton by eight seconds.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who led off the grid and was faster than the Mercedes pair on his super softs before needing a tyre change on lap 36, was third.
It was an incident-packed race with McLaren’s double world champion Fernando Alonso walking away from a horrifying high-speed crash and Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari catching fire in the pit lane.
The dominant German team has now won 33 of the last 39 races and it was a sweet triumph for Rosberg, who has trailed Hamilton in the drivers’ standings for the past two seasons.
