F1 Power Rankings: Australia Grand Prix, Where has Hamilton & Vettel gone?

The opening race came to a close on Sunday to kick-off the brand new season of Formula One.

As you will probably know by now that it was Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas that took the first win of the season after a convincing drive round the streets of Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix.

His team mate and world champion Lewis Hamilton finished runner's up to the Finn while Red Bull's Max Verstappen completed the podium by finishing in third place.

The two Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, who were expected to finish higher, crossed the finish line in 4th and 5th.

So with the first race out of the way in 2019 follows the first F1 Power Rankings of the new season.

The Power Rankings is a ranking system from F1 that determines the current drivers in the racing series.

How does it work?

A five-man panel assess each driver after every Grand Prix and score them out of 10 according to their performance across the weekend – taking machinery out of the equation.

The F1 experts’ scores are then combined to produce a race score. As the season progresses, these race scores are then averaged to produce a ranking which reflects driver performance.

Outside the top 5

10. Lance Stroll (Racing Point)

9. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

8. George Russell (Williams)

6= Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso)

6= Romain Grosjean (Haas)

Here are the top 5 drivers in the F1 Power Rankings...

#5 Lando Norris

Last weekend's events in Melbourne was a weekend to remember for McLaren's Lando Norris as he competed in his first ever Formula One Grand Prix.

The Briton was a little hard himself after the race when talking to the press by telling the media that he could have done better.

Yet his team mate and experienced F1 racer, Carlos Sainz Jnr, did not even finish the race while Norris did in 12th place and let's not forget that the Briton also made it into Q3 in qualifying while Sainz failed to get out of Q1.

Not a bad start to his F1 career if you ask us.

#4 Nico Hulkenberg

F1 Grand Prix of Australia - Final Practice

Nico Hulkenberg's start to the new season was a solid performance from the German as he finished 7th in Sunday's race.

His new team mate, Daniel Ricciardo, failed to even finish the opening race after knackering his front wing at the start of the race.

Not a good start to his Renault spell after saying goodbye to Red Bull after nine years with the four time constructors' champions.

Renault this year do have outsider's expectancy of finishing either 4th or higher in the constructors' championship.

The top 10 consistency Hulkenberg has in F1 will certainly help them achieve that season aim while the team hope Ricciardo can get back to showing his best on the track straight away.

It's very early days in the championship but every point counts and Sunday's race could be an opportunity missed when their rivals, Red Bull, only had Max Verstappen finishing in the points (3rd).

#3 Kevin Magnussen

2019 is a year of possibilities for the young Haas team and Kevin Magnussen showed to us over the weekend the capability the Haas VF-19 has to compete near the top.

Magnussen of course originally came into F1 by racing for McLaren after being brought up by the team.

Yes, the Dane only had one season with the Woking team but his links with McLaren just shows that there is some racing talent in Magnussen despite not many of the drivers thinking differently about him.

Magnussen finished the race in 6th place after starting one place below in 7th while team mate, Romain Grosjean, bowed out of the Australian Grand Prix again for the third year in a row.

Luckily for Magnussen, the pitstop flashbacks from 12 months ago did not affect his performance while Grosjean experienced the deja vu.

2019 could be very exciting for Magnussen and his team.

#2 Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen showed some true grit in Melbourne and what a racer this young man is becoming. The guy just looks to be getting better and better every time we see him out on track.

Last weekend was a fresh start for the Red Bull Racing team, as they had a new driver's line-up of Pierre Gasly teaming up with Verstappen and a new engine setup after a new partnership was agreed with Honda to supply the engines.

Verstappen continued his hot podium form by finishing third in the opening race to now stretch his consistent top three finishes to six races in a row.

The Dutchman's highlight from Sunday's showdown was overtaking Sebastian Vettel on lap 31 in order to keep his podium form going.

Vettel had no answer to Verstappen's move and would have to accept finishing outside of the top three for the first race on the calendar.

#1 Valtteri Bottas

Well it was going to be obvious who would be top of the Power Rankings after the first race of the season especially when it's the man that crossed the finish line in 1st place.

Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas made a statement from his performance in Sunday's race that he is back and ready to compete for the grand prize that is the Formula 1 world championship.

Keke Rosberg, Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen have done it for Finaldn by claiming the grand prize, now Bottas wants to follow in their footsteps.

Not only did he win the race but he won the race by more than 20 seconds away from second place Lewis Hamilton.

Not many drivers can say they have beaten a five time world champion like Hamilton pretty comfortably.

The Finn overtook Hamilton at lights out before the first turn and also later on in the race achieved the fastest lap which added a point to his 25 points.

A different Bottas on the race track, can he keep it up?

Do you agree with F1's Power Rankings? Comment below.

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