Alonso on podium at Melbourne

By role
March 7 2004

Fernando Alonso scored his first podium of the season today at the Australian Grand Prix. The race was a total domination by the Ferrari team with Michael Schumacher winning and Rubens Barrichello finishing 2nd. Third was Fernando Alonso who finished 35 seconds behind the German.

The key of the the podium was the exciting start in which Alonso went to the grass to overtake Juan Pablo Montoya and also loking his brakes to prevent his temmate Jarno Trulli to overtake him on the first turn.

On the second turn Alonso had passed two cars and was running third while Jarno Trulli was able to overtake 4 cars.

Alonso did not abandon the third place for the whole race and during a part of the race was able to be the only one to have times close at least with the exhuberant pace of the Ferrari F2004.

Alonso’s teammate, Jarno Trulli, struggled with traffic and difficult car for most of the race and ended 7th one lap behind the winner.

Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya finished 4th and 5th while Jenson Button continued with the good form of the BAR finishing 6th just in front of Jarno Trulli.

McLaren had a tough day today as Kimi Raikkonen retired with a mecvhanical failure and David Coulthard finished 8th.