WILD ONE; Fernando Alonso takes the dramatic Australian GP.(Motorsports)

Byline: ALAN HENRY

Fernando Alonso delivered yet another dominating performance in the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne's Albert Park circuit, extending his championship lead in the Renault R26. Alonso fought off a McLaren-Mercedes challenge, before backing off in the closing stages to take the win by just 1.8 seconds over hard-charging Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen flat-spotted a front tire as he muscled ahead of pole-sitter Jenson Button in the opening stages, losing pace as he grappled with a vibration that prevented him from keeping up with the leading Renault.

The vibration was bad enough to throw off a front-wing strake, so Raikkonen received a new nose section at his second refueling stop. In a wild race punctuated by spins, accidents and no fewer than four safety-car periods, Raikkonen was more or less satisfied with his second place.

Button had the worst luck of the race, and the Honda team was left wondering what it must do to achieve a decent result after a dismal event.

Button slipped from a brilliant start to an ignominious retirement with a fiery engine failure within sight of the checkered flag. That dropped him from fifth to ninth place in the last yards of the race.

It was Button's third pole of his career. "We were really struggling for grip early on,'' he said at the end of a gusty session punctuated by a fleeting rain shower on this challenging track. "But it's fantastic to take pole position after all that. We juggled with the differential and traction control settings, plus the tire pressures and the front-wing adjustments, and then the car was good on new tires right at the end. Conditions were very windy, with low grip, and the track is bumpy, so it would have been easy to make a mistake. It was really tough to get [sufficient] heat into the tires, but we're in the best position we possibly could be.''

Not for long. Button, like most competitors, battled for grip on a dusty track surface in conditions that were dramatically cool after some sweltering heat. The Honda team went with the softer available tire choice, against Michelin's advice, so Button grappled with graining rubber and struggled to generate sufficient temperature.