Lewis Hamilton became the Silver Arrow Terminator as he lapped half of the field to win the season opener in Melbourne.
Hamilton must have said "hasta la vista, baby" to the seven drivers who failed to finish the race, three of which didn't even start. Valtteri Bottas wasn't passed fit from back pain suffered in qualifying with Kevin Magnussen and Daniil Kyvat failing to make the grid with power unit and gear box issues.
Nico Rosberg was unable to get the jump on his team-mate at the start and a first corner incident behind the Mercedes brought out the safety car. Sebastian Vettel was alongside his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen going into turn one. Raikkonen backed out, ran wide, came back on to the track and sandwiched Felipe Nasr with Pastor Maldonado.
Nasr touched Maldonado and sent the Lotus into the barrier. Raikkonen would later retire after being released from the pits with an unsecured rear left tyre. Max Verstappen's early promise was cut short when he was forced to retire, as was Romain Grosjean.
Sauber ended a turbulent week by having both drivers finishing in the points. Nasr showed composure to take 5th with his team-mate Marcus Ericsson 8th. Force India also brought their cars home with Nico Hulkenberg 7th and Sergio Perez 10th. Daniel Ricciardo and Sainz took their Renault powered cars across the finish line in 6th and 9th.
With 11 finishers, the driver who missed out on the points was Jenson Button. The 2009 world champion Honda held off Perez before the first round of pit-stops. Button was able to get some much needed mileage by finishing the race after a truncated pre-season testing. McLaren will be looking forward to Fernado Alonso returning for Malaysia.
Hamilton savoured his sixth victory in seven races when Hollywood came to Albert Park with Arnold Schwarzenegger conducting the podium interviews. A chill must have gone down the pit-lane when Hamilton and Arnie, in unison, told the crowd "I'll be back."
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