Kimi Raikkonen cruised to victory at the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday while Formula One's title favorites laboured behind him, announcing lotus as a genuine championship contender in the season ahead.
Raikkonen took the lead for good on lap 43 of 58 in a race which had seven different leaders, and had the luxury of driving conservatively in the closing laps while Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel scrambled in vain to keep up.
The Finn needed only two pit stops compared to three stops for each of the six men who followed in his wake, and he became the 15th man in F1 history to record 20 grand prix wins. "Our plan was to do two stops and though it's always difficult in the first races to know when to stop and not go too early, we got it exactly right," Raikkonen said.
"We followed the plan and it worked out perfectly for us. I could save the tires and go fast if I needed. It was one of the easiest races I have done to win and hopefully we can have many more of these races."
Alonso looked like a winning chance when he trailed Raikkonen by 6.2 seconds with 12 laps to go, but could not make up ground. Still he was satisfied with where Ferrari stands compared to the poor early races last season.
Pole sitter and three-time reigning world champion Vettel was third in a Red Bull. He was forced to pit after just seven laps due to worn super-soft tires and never threatened thereafter.
"The first few laps were okay but then the tires were falling apart and we could not go as far as other people," Vettel said.
"We have to admit sometimes that other people are faster than us but it's a long season so we have some good points to start with and we have no reason to be disappointed."
While Vettel was accentuating the positive, the race performance was a disappointing one, and the rapid tire degradation is a headache for a team which had precious few reliability issues over recent years.
Ferrari's Felipe Massa was fourth in an encouraging performance that indicated he had carried the strong form of late 2012 into the new campaign.
lewis Hamilton was fifth in his first race for Mercedes.