Memes summing up the Australian Grand Prix – essentiallysports.som

The Formula One 2017 season kicked off in Melbourne today for the first race of the season. Yesterday’s qualifying session saw Lewis Hamilton take pole position, flanked by Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas. Vettel won the Australian GP from Hamilton and his teammate Bottas with Vettel’s teammate Kimi Raikkonen in 4th. Here are a few Internet memes that popped up during the race weekend:

The biggest surprise of the race was Sebastian Vettel’s victory which must have finally satisfied the tifosi. Vettel cleverly undercut Hamilton to take the lead having failed to move ahead at the start.

Quite a wonderful time to be a Ferrari fan.

After taking part in Free Practice 1 and 2, German driver Pascal Wehrlein stunned everyone when he announced that he was pulling out for the rest of the weekend. The Sauber driver cited fitness issues as the reason because he had spent significantly less time training and more time in recuperation. Wehrlein had sustained a back injury during an accident in the Race of Champions.

In Free Practice 2, Renault driver Jolyon Palmer brought out the red flags after a strange crash. The British driver had just exited the final corner when the rear end stepped away and the helpless driver was pitched into the barrier. He would soon be knocked out in the first elimination and post the slowest qualifying time to finish 20th. Palmer believed that everyone and everything conspired against him and slammed the Renault team by calling the RS17 ‘awful’. To make matters even worse, he was 3.3 seconds slower than new teammate Nico Hulkenberg.

Earlier this year, Hamilton and Mercedes acknowledged that Ferrari are a lot closer this time around. But, come qualifying, the triple world champion once again blitzed the field to score pole position for the race.

During the 3rd segment of qualifying, home favourite Daniel Ricciardo inexplicably lost the rear end of the RB13 and was pitched into the barriers. The Australian was forced to change his gearbox following the crash and incurred a 5-place grid penalty.

Fernando Alonso prompted guffaws when he was asked about what he would like for this season. The Spaniard replied “Equal engines for everyone” but looking deeper into Alonso’s comments reveals that the MCL32 is woefully under powered. Poor Alonso might be regretting his switch from Ferrari to McLaren.

Amid all of McLaren’s troubles, people went as far as trying to predict how long the McLaren Honda would last before breaking down. Alonso went as far as 3 laps from the finish. Vandoorne, on the other hand was able to make it to the end, albeit in 13th and last.

Hamilton’s prediction came back to bite him and the Mercedes team as Vettel closed out the victory ahead of Hamilton and Bottas. Fortune smiled on Vettel and Ferrari as Hamilton’s pitstop saw the Mercedes driver stuck behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and unable to overtake. Vettel’s own pitstop saw his car come out ahead of the Red Bull and the rest is history