The 2007 Australian Grand Prix opened the season with a debut podium for Hamilton

Kimi Raikkonen won the 2007 Australian Grand Prix from pole position, 7.2 seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso. Behind them, Lewis Hamilton made his Grand Prix debut for McLaren and finished third, the first driver to stand on the podium on debut since 1996. Every car ran Bridgestone tyres, and those tyres drew criticism once the flag had fallen.

Why did the 2007 opener matter so much?

It opened the 2007 Formula One World Championship and kicked off the post-Schumacher period. Fernando Alonso arrived as the double defending champion, while Hamilton was a rookie alongside him at McLaren. Michelin had left the sport after 2006, so every entrant ran Bridgestone tyres, something not seen since the 2000 Malaysian Grand Prix. The race ran for 58 laps on the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit on 18 March 2007.

A crowd of 105,000 attended race day. The podium that afternoon was made up of three drivers who were each on their debut for their team, a line-up the sport had never had before, if 1950 is set aside.

Hamilton finished third on his first start, and Raikkonen won from pole in the first round of the championship.

How did practice shape the Melbourne weekend?

Friday's morning session was run in the wet and belonged to McLaren's Fernando Alonso, who set the fastest time more than a second quicker than Felipe Massa. The afternoon session was dry, and the two Ferraris finished first and second, with Massa ahead of Raikkonen. Hamilton trailed Raikkonen by less than a tenth of a second. Giancarlo Fisichella was fourth for Renault, Nick Heidfeld fifth for BMW Sauber, and Wurz in his Williams sixth.

Saturday morning began with sunshine and a light drizzle that dried almost at once. Raikkonen set the quickest time at 1:26.064 and Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella was second at 1:26.454. Hamilton was third in the morning, a rookie ahead of the double and defending champion Alonso, who was seventh. Super Aguri, the slowest team of 2006, put Anthony Davidson fourth and Takuma Sato tenth, while Heidfeld and Massa rounded out the top six that morning.

How did qualifying set the grid?

Raikkonen took pole with a lap of 1:26.072 in the final part of qualifying, a second quicker than Alonso's best. Alonso lined up second, Nick Heidfeld third, and Hamilton fourth after an untidy middle sector. Felipe Massa was knocked out in part two and started at the back after an engine change.

Part one opened with Mark Webber setting a benchmark of 1:27.799. Hamilton then went more than a second quicker, to 1:26.674, his fastest lap of the meeting, before Raikkonen took control of the session. Barrichello and David Coulthard were eliminated in part one, and so were drivers from Toro Rosso and Spyker.

In part two Alonso took top spot at 1:25.326, with Heidfeld second and Hamilton close behind. Massa's lap ended after an error at turns nine and ten, and a gearbox problem meant he failed to set a time. Sato reached part three, while Davidson, both Williams cars, Heikki Kovalainen and Jenson Button all went out.

Part three placed Robert Kubica fifth and Giancarlo Fisichella sixth, with Webber seventh and the two Toyotas of Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli eighth and ninth. Sato completed the top ten. Christijan Albers chose to start from the pit lane.

How did the race start?

Raikkonen got clean away from pole, and Heidfeld, who had started third, passed Alonso on the left. Hamilton was briefly stuck behind the leading trio before taking the outside line into the first corner, which dropped Alonso to fourth. By lap five Raikkonen was two and a half seconds clear of Heidfeld, and the field had settled into its order.

Anthony Davidson stalled on the grid and hit Adrian Sutil after getting going, but he kept on. Christijan Albers, driving a Spyker, became the first retirement of the season when he overshot the Sports Center corner and hit the tyre barrier. McLaren's team principal Ron Dennis later accused BMW of showboating.

What changed in the middle of the race?

The first stops came in the early middle of the race, and Hamilton led on his debut while Raikkonen was in the pits. Scott Speed and Robert Kubica retired at the Clark chicane, and Raikkonen's lead over Hamilton grew beyond 18 seconds.

Heidfeld made the first stop on lap fifteen, and Raikkonen followed four laps later, rejoining fourth behind Hamilton. Alonso pitted soon after. Hamilton's McLaren came in a lap after Alonso's, and Raikkonen reclaimed the lead while Heidfeld dropped to fifth.

For much of the early race Hamilton held third ahead of his teammate Alonso, and by the first stops he was leading. Scott Speed's Toro Rosso stopped on lap 31 when two of its tyres gave way, and he ended up in the Clark chicane. Kubica followed six laps later at the same corner, as the third retirement of the race, with a gearbox failure in the part of the car he had worried about most during pre-season. Nico Rosberg took seventh from Ralf Schumacher there and pulled away from the Toyota.

Heikki Kovalainen had a hard debut. He went off at the Jones chicane during his 40th lap, lost a place to Felipe Massa, and had run wide several times earlier in the race. Renault's team chief Flavio Briatore called the debut rubbish. Teammate Giancarlo Fisichella had an uneventful race with no incidents.

The second round of stops put Hamilton in the lead. Hamilton pitted first, which let Alonso lead for the first time, and Alonso then pitted a lap later and rejoined ahead of his rookie teammate. Raikkonen took the lead back and held it.

On lap 49 David Coulthard tried to pass Alexander Wurz, and his car went over the top of the Williams and came close to the Austrian's head. Neither driver was hurt.

Which drivers were penalised during the race?

Adrian Sutil was given a drive-through penalty during the race, and Jenson Button received one for speeding in the pit lane. The only changes before the race were Massa's engine change, which sent him to the back, and Albers' decision to start from the pit lane. Alonso spent part of the race held up behind Sutil's lone Spyker.

Who won the 2007 Australian Grand Prix?

Kimi Raikkonen won, 7.2 seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso, despite a water leak that developed towards the end. Lewis Hamilton finished more than 18 seconds back in third, on his Grand Prix debut, and Raikkonen controlled the race from the front, and Alonso had reclaimed second place from his teammate in the second set of stops.

Hamilton's podium was the first by a debutant since Jacques Villeneuve at Melbourne in 1996. Raikkonen's win was the first by a driver on his first race for Ferrari since Nigel Mansell did it in 1989.

No earlier race had produced a podium of three drivers who were each on debut for their team, unless 1950 is counted, when every driver was making a World Championship debut.

Did the tyres draw criticism in Melbourne?

The tyres drew criticism after the race. The rules required the softer compound to be visibly distinguishable while a car was on track, but a small white marking on the outside of the tyre was judged inadequate. Bridgestone painted the second groove from the outside white for the next round at Sepang.

Because every team ran the same tyres, the post-race criticism was aimed at the one supplier the whole grid was using, not at a single team's choice.

What were the race results at a glance?