Australian Grand Prix 2018: Sebastian Vettel beats Lewis Hamilton as Ferrari lay down marker in the season opener
Hamilton was made to eat his words after taunting German in build up, claiming he would 'wipe smile off his face'
LEWIS HAMILTON was made to eat his words after Sebastian Vettel won the Australian GP.
Hamilton taunted Vettel after qualifying, saying that he wanted to "wipe the smile off his face" with a dominant performance on the Saturday.
Vettel responded by telling him to enjoy his evening as he'd be the one partying on Sunday after the race.
But neither of them could probably believe the turn of events which decisively swapped the two drivers around on lap 26 of this race.
With Hamilton leading and looking comfortable, a double retirement within two laps from American team Haas, owing to two bungled pitstops, saw the deployment of the virtual safety car.
The safety measure limits a driver's speed while marshals tried to recover Romain Grosjean's car, yet Vettel was able to capitalise and made a pitstop.
Mercedes were left snoozing and there were no instructions to Hamilton to speed up and Vettel emerged from his stop in the lead.
Hamilton, who had already stopped for fresh tyres, was stunned at being leapfrogged by the strategic call by the Italian team and was left in a panic.
He shouted over his radio: "What just happened, guys? Why did you not tell me Vettel was in the pits?
"Was that my mistake? Was I supposed to go quicker through the safety car? What went wrong?"
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His team replied and said "We thought we were safe, there is obviously something wrong" — likely meaning their calculations were wrong.
It put Hamilton in a difficult position as he tried to remain in touching distance of Vettel but also travelling in the turbulent air which compromised his performance.
He mounted a late challenge on lap 47, asking his team: "Can I push yet. I know how much you want it...I am going for it."
But he then made a big mistake as a rush of blood to the head meant dropped even further back and 2.7 seconds behind Vettel.
And after that, he never came close as he gave up the fight on the last lap, still rueing his team's failure to spot the undercut during the VSC period.
Kimi Raikkonen was third while Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo was fourth after starting the race in eighth.
Fernando Alonso was fifth in an encouraging day for McLaren while Max Verstappen was sixth.
This Vettel's 100th podium and his 48th win, but he admitted he had been quite fortunate.
He said: "It was pretty good. We got a bit of luck with the safety car but really enjoyed it. We were a little bit lucky, Lewis had a great lap yesterday and did a great lap.”
"But we are not exactly there yet with the car, but it gives us a good start and fresh motivation for the next few weeks."
Hamilton, meanwhile was magnanimous in defeat, adding: ";It was an incredible weekend and congrats to Sebastian and Ferrari.
“They did a better job and we have to go back to the drawing-board and work on it, but we have great pace.
"This is an awesome circuit but it is hard to overtake and in the end we decided to fight another day and save the engine and try to get the points elsewhere."