page_title: 2010 Australian Grand Prix
section_title: Race
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 Australian Grand Prix / Race
caption_attribution_description: Button in Australia
context_page_description: The 2010 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 28 March 2010 at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was the second round of the 2010 Formula One season. The 58-lap race was won by McLaren driver Jenson Button who started from fourth position. Robert Kubica finished second for the Renault team and Ferrari driver Felipe Massa came in third.
  The victory was Button's first of the season; the result moved him to third place in the Drivers' Championship, two points behind Massa and a further four adrift of Fernando Alonso. Lewis Hamilton dropped to fourth while Nico Rosberg maintained fifth position. McLaren reduced the gap to Ferrari in the World Constructors' Championship to be sixteen points behind. Mercedes increased their hold on third place, while Renault's strong result allowed them to tie with Red Bull for fourth place, with seventeen races left in the season.
context_section_description: The conditions on the grid were wet before the race; the air temperature ranged between 26 to 29 °C (79 to 84 °F) and the track temperature ranged from 24 to 28 °C (75 to 82 °F). The race began at 17:00 DST (UTC+11). All cars started on the intermediate compound tyre. Virgin Racing nominated to start Glock and di Grassi from pit lane after replacing the fuel collectors on their cars because issues in qualifying forced them to run with more fuel than would be ideal. Trulli attempted to start the race from the pit lane after his Lotus suffered a hydraulic pump failure on the grid, but the team were unable to rectify the problem and Trulli did not start. When the race started, Vettel maintained his advantage heading into the first corner while Massa made a fast start to slot into second position ahead of Webber. Kubica had an excellent getaway, rising from ninth to fourth position by the end of the first lap. Hamilton made up three positions over the same distance. At the first corner Button's front left wheel made contact with Alonso's right rear tyre, causing the Spanish driver to spin and dropped to 22nd position. Schumacher was collected by Alonso and sustained a broken front wing. Further around the lap, Kobayashi damaged his front wing from contact with another car at turn three, which became detached going into turn six and made heavy contact with the side of Hülkenberg and Buemi. The incident prompted the deployment of the safety car. Schumacher drove into the pit lane to fit a new front wing.
  Racing resumed at the end of lap four when the safety car pulled into the pit-lane with Vettel leading Massa. Kubica attempted to pass Webber but the Australian maintained his position by moving to the outside. Schumacher attempted to pass di Grassi for 19th position on the same lap. di Grassi managed to retake the position from Schumacher by driving around the outside of Ascari corner, but Schumacher got ahead of di Grassi on the pit straight. At the end of the first racing lap, Vettel led Massa by 1.1 seconds, who in turn was followed by Webber, Kubica, Rosberg, Button, Hamilton, Sutil, Barrichello and Petrov. Hamilton passed his teammate Button for sixth at turn three on lap six. Senna stopped on the circuit to retire with an hydraulic failure on the same lap. Massa slowed on the next lap which caused Webber to move into second. Button called his team to bring out slick tyres and endured a large amount of water to enter the pit lane on lap seven. Button slid off the circuit at turn three, while Vettel had a 1.2 second over teammate Webber by the eighth lap. The track started to dry which resulted in most of the field pitting for soft dry tyres. Vettel made a pit stop from the lead on lap nine. Webber took over the lead for one lap before his pit stop on the tenth lap. He went off at the first corner, and fell behind Massa. Petrov missed the braking point for Whiteford corner on lap ten and spun off into the gravel trap which caused his car to become beached and retired. Sutil briefly took over the lead until he made a pit stop on lap twelve and got out of his car to retire because he lost power in his engine.
  Thus, Vettel regained the first position as he began to slowly pull away from Button who was 1.7 seconds behind Vettel on lap 13 with Kubica a further two seconds adrift in third. Alonso had moved into tenth position by lap 13 and gained a further after he overtook de la Rosa at turn nine on the same lap. Alonso passed Barrichello for eighth on the 14th lap and set a new fastest lap on the following lap, a 1:31.573. Hamilton and Webber passed Alonso for fifth and sixth positions at the start of lap 16. Webber attempted to defend fifth place from Hamilton but went wide into the gravel trap at turn three and fell down to eighth. Massa immediately overtook Hamilton around the outside on the same lap. Hamilton started to battle Massa (who had graining on his right-rear tyre) for fifth position with Webber and Alonso starting to close the gap to the two drivers. Massa slid his car at turn 16 at the end of lap 21 which allow
caption: Jenson Button elected to change to slicks early on in the race, eventually going on to clinch the victory.
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