The 2007 Formula 1 season started off in grand style with Saturday’s Qualifying session. The format for the session was unchanged from last season. The session, divided into three parts saw Kimi taking the first one convincingly before Alonso made the second his own. The final part was dominated by Raikkonen who finished it off with a pole position time of 1:26.072, a full four tenths faster than Alonso who secured the second place in the grid. the next row was filled up by BMW’s Nick Heidfeld and Alonso’s rookie team-mate, Lewis Hamilton. Kimi’s team-mate Massa had a disastrous time as he failed to reach the third part of qualifying when his Ferrari came to a halt due to a gear box problem.

Massa had further problems when his engine had to be changed. He finally started the race from the pit lane owing to the 10 places grid penalty. His starting position meant he had to opt for 1 pit-stop strategy and he quietly went about his business securing the 6th place for his team starting from last. Meanwhile, his team-mate Kimi had an awesome race. Raikkonen did an almost faultless race as he decimated the opposition and stormed to his first race victory for the Ferrari team. Kimi also scored the fastest race lap clocked at 1:25.235, which is faster than his pole position time.

World Champion Alonso had a good solid race while he was chasing his rookie team-mate, Hamilton for most part of the race. Alonso finished second and Hamilton finished third in the race. Lewis had a great debut with the McLaren team and he was impressive all along matching his team-mate and even surpassing him often. A second place finish would have done more justification to his brilliant drive. Another rookie Heikki Kovaleinen had an “horrible” debut and was all over the place. To be fair to him, the Renault he was driving wasn’t great either. He finished the race in 10th place while his team-mate, Fisichella had a better race in comparison finishing 5th overall just ahead of Massa.

The final race results are as follows -

1 - Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari - 58 - 1:25:28.770
2 - Fernando Alonso - McLaren-Mercedes - 58 - +7.2 secs
3 - Lewis Hamilton - McLaren-Mercedes - 58 - +18.5 secs
4 - Nick Heidfeld - BMW - 58 - +38.7 secs
5 - Giancarlo Fisichella - Renault - 58 - +66.4 secs
6 - Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 58 - +66.8 secs
7 - Nico Rosberg - Williams-Toyota - 57 - +1 Lap
8 - Ralf Schumacher - Toyota - 57 - +1 Lap

9 - Jarno Trulli - Toyota - 57 - +1 Lap
10 - Heikki Kovalainen - Renault - 57 - +1 Lap
11 - Rubens Barrichello - Honda - 57 - +1 Lap
12 - Takuma Sato - Super Aguri-Honda - 57 - +1 Lap
13 - Mark Webber - Red Bull-Renault - 57 - +1 Lap
14 - Vitantonio Liuzzi - STR-Ferrari - 57 - +1 Lap
15 - Jenson Button - Honda - 57 - +1 Lap
16 - Anthony Davidson - Super Aguri-Honda - 56 - +2 Laps
17 - Adrian Sutil - Spyker-Ferrari - 56 - +2 Laps

Ret - Alexander Wurz - Williams-Toyota - 48 - Accident
Ret - David Coulthard - Red Bull-Renault - 48 - Accident
Ret - Robert Kubica - BMW - 36 - Gearbox
Ret - Scott Speed - STR-Ferrari - 28 - Wheel
Ret - Christijan Albers - Spyker-Ferrari - 10 - Accident

Next race will take place in Malaysia on 8th of April 2007.