Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton finished the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, the first race of the 2009 Formula 1 World Championship, in third place. His team mate Heikki Kovalainen retired with a broken left front suspension, the consequence of a first-corner incident which was not his fault. Winner of the 58-lap race (307.574 kms) was Brawn Mercedes driver Jenson Button ahead of his team mate Rubens Barrichello; both achieved a 1-2 victory in the team’s first race. Brawn GP, formed on March 6th 2009 after it was confirmed that Ross Brawn, the ex-team boss of the Honda Racing F1 Team, had bought the team from Honda. Brawn GP and Force India both use Mercedes-Benz engines to power their F1 cars. Even though, Hamilton didn’t win, this is still a win for the Mercedes-Benz engines.

Ron Dennis will be stepping down as boss of the McLaren-Mercedes Formula One team. Ron will concentrate on another branch of the company called McLaren Automotive that is planning a new range of exclusive sports cars and, in particular, a Ferrari-challenging road car due for launch in 2010.

McLaren’s Chief operating officer Martin Whitmarsh will take over Dennis’s role and his job will be to make the new MP4-24 race car eve more competitive than last year’s car.