The result of the Australian Grand Prix may have been a shock for many and a disappointment for others, but nevertheless, David Coulthard and the McLaren-Mercedes team win was one of the most popular in recent times.

Before the race

As was expected, the Williams cars were amongst the fastest cars on the circuit from the outset. Jacques Villeneuve was not the fastest man in the first free practice sessions, but seemed to be holding back a little, setting searing times in the first two splits, but aborting the laps at the end.

Michael Schumacher in the Ferrari F310b was a lot faster expected and more than one commentator expressed the opinion that the Ferrari team had been sandbagging in the tests.

Benetton-Renault were the big disappointment of the pre-race sessions, with both drivers complaining bitterly of lack of grip and poor engine mappings, despite the other Renault powered team suffering no such problems.

Both McLaren-Mercedes looked good, as did the Jordan-Peugeot pair, but the biggest surprise was the performance of the Sauber-Petronas (nee Ferrari). Johnny Herbert managed to get his car into a superb 7th place on the grid.

Damon Hill was the man whom a large part of the F1 fans were looking for with interest. Damon did surprisingly well in the practice sessions, reaching a respectable 13th place in a car that did its best to break at any and every opportunity. Despite this Hill was hard pushed to make the race, qualifying in a lowly 20th place.

The predicted tyre war had had an unexpected victim: brakes. The shorter braking distances were causing the brake pads to heat up as the drivers were able to exert more pressure. Although this hadn't caused a problem in the cooler European weather, in the warmth of Melbourne, many teams were concerned about the longevity of their carbon fibre discs.

The Race

Before the race even started, there was a retirement.

Damon Hill was always going to suffer in the Australian GP because of the appalling reliability of his Arrows-Yamaha, and much to the disappointment many people, he broke down on the parade lap, his fly-by-wire throttle having failed almost immediately. The surprise was that Damon did not storm off, or put his head in his hands, instead he helped the marshals remove his stricken car from the trackside.

So with the rest of the field formed up safely, the stage was set for the first race of the 1997 FIA Formula One World Championship.

As the lights went out, it appeared that Jacques Villeneuve had truly taken over as the Williams number one when he made a terrible start, allowing his team mate, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and several others to pass in the run up to the first bend. A lightening starts from Johnny Herbert and Eddie Irvine, brought Herbert alongside Villeneuve's Williams at the first corner. He would have slotted neatly into place behind him had the over-enthusiastic Irvine not left his braking a little too late. The resulting accident pushed Villeneuve into Herbert and both of the cars slid into the gravel, eliminating both on the spot. Irvine managed to last another lap before a puncture and suspension failure caused him to pull off the track.

Villeneuve and Herbert called Irvine stupid and the move "kamikaze", whereas the Ulsterman believed that the whole thing was just a racing accident. Regardless, the majority of people watching will have judged the whole incident to be the cause of the second Ferrari.

All this left Frentzen leading Coulthard, Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alesi and Berger, with Heinz-Harald opening a 2-second gap almost immediately, showing that his relatively poor performance in qualifying may have been due to traffic.

Further back, the much hyped Ralf Schumacher ended his race on the second lap, spinning when he wasn't under any considerable pressure from other drivers. The spin, it later transpired, was caused by a suspension failure, ending what on the face of it was a promising debut.

Ralf was not the only one to retire on the second lap, however, as the Dutch Tyrrell-Ford driver Jos Verstappen drove into the gravel trap at high speed. While the accident was not entirely his fault (Minardi-Hart driver Ukyo Katayama forcing him onto the sand earlier in the lap) Jos took the full blame, saying he just went in too quickly. One thing the accident did prove is that the new Tyrrell nose is as strong as the team suggested.

Six laps into the race, the top 6 were unchanged and Frentzen had managed to pull out a 13-second lead over Coulthard whose silver McLaren was keeping the scarlet Ferrari at bay. The battle was reminiscent of those in the 50's when the Silver Arrows and the Scuderia fought it out, the only difference being that in the 50's, overtaking was possible. It seems that Albert Park is a difficult track for closely matched cars as was seen with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve last year.

A fair distance behind Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alesi and Berger were racing closely, and at the back, Pedro Diniz, Shinji Nakano and Jarno Trulli were dicing for 17th spot. Both Diniz and Nakano left the track in the first 8 laps, leaving the young Italian driver to disappear up the road on his own having managed the to ignore the pressure the two faster cars were exerting.

As the field entered lap 11, the top 10 drivers were: Frentzen -> Coulthard -> Schumacher -> Hakkinen -> Alesi -> Berger -> Panis -> Larini -> Barrichello ->Fisichella

Although the Stewart-Ford of Rubens Barrichello ran well in the teams first competitive outing, the Brazilian was holding up the Jordan of Fisichella and on lap 13 Giancarlo decided to try and pass at the entry to turn 4. Under braking, the Jordan lost rear end grip and spun past the tartan liveried Stewart into the gravel, ending the first 1997 race early for Eddie Jordan.

Fisichella's misfortune was to Ukyo Katayama's benefit as the Japanese driver was promoted into 10th position, one of the highest positions a Minardi has been in for a long time, without a significant number of cars retiring first. Behind Katayama, Jan Magnusson was doing his best to hold Mika Salo at bay, with the Tyrrell driver clearly being held up by both the cars immediately in front.

On lap 18, both Frentzen and Panis stopped for their first of two stops, both drivers using the softer compounds that their respective tyre suppliers had to offer. Frentzen dropped down to third, approximately 14 seconds behind the Coulthard and Schumacher battle, managing to emerge just ahead of the three-way battle for fourth (Hakkinen, Alesi and Berger all separated by just over 2 seconds).

The two-stop strategy adopted by Frentzen, indicated that at least some of his speed was down to a lighter fuel load. For this to have worked properly, the German would have needed to come out of the pits ahead of, or very close to, the McLaren and Ferrari, but he failed to do this. It has been said that Frentzen lacks concentration and this slowed his pace in the first part of the race, and why this may prove to be correct, it should be remembered that this is the first time he has led an F1 race and leading on your own is very different from racing with someone just behind or in front of you.

Almost straight away Frentzen set about catching the leading pair, and for the first few laps effortlessly reeled them in, only to have the lead extended again, presumably when the teams got word to the leaders about the risk he posed. Added to this, Heinz-Harald had a McLaren and two Benettons breathing down his neck, ready to punish any errors.

The increased pace of the leaders gave Coulthard fastest race lap, at that time, and extended his small lead over Schumacher, knowing that he would need as much spare time as possible to ensure his lead would be intact after his stop.

On lap 30, both Michael Schumacher and Gerhard Berger stopped for fuel and fresh rubber, dropping Schumacher to 5th and Berger to 7th, ahead of Larini and behind Panis.

As soon as Berger had left the pits, the Benetton mechanics hung out the pitboard for Jean Alesi to tell him it was time to come in, and for the next two laps he ignored it, until on lap 33 he finally ran out of fuel. As the car stopped on the side of the circuit, the Benetton mechanics, visibly angry, packed up the tyres and jacks and marched back into the garage. Alesi for his part stayed in his car for an inordinate amount of time, clearly wondering what he was going to say to his pit crew and his team boss, Flavio Briatore. Martin Brundle, now working on the ITV Grand Prix broadcasts commented that the Sicilian would probably be best advised to leave the track without visiting the motorhome, and at the time this sounded like good advice.

Joining Jean in retirement around this point was Ukyo Katayama who slipped from the race unnoticed as has so often happened to Minardi drivers over the last few seasons.

Just before the Benetton driver's self-induced retirement, leader David Coulthard pitted, dropping down to third for a short time, before his team mate's stop moved him up to second once again. Hakkinen, for his part, emerged in fourth, leading Olivier Panis and Gerhard Berger.

Frentzen, it seemed, had regained his concentration and had managed to pull out a 19-second lead over Coulthard and had already broken the Scots lap record. On the face of things, it appeared that Frentzen had been given a verbal kick to get him moving, and based on the previous stops, he would need at least a 35-second lead to ensure he kept the lead after his second stop.

On lap 40 the race was effectively decided as the remaining Williams driver stopped to take on fuel and tyres. A sticking left rear wheel nut, made the race between the pit crew and on-track McLaren a formality, adding at least 6 seconds to the stop. This dropped the German down to third behind Coulthard and Schumacher, both of whom would be hard to pass (assuming he could catch them).

Lap 42 saw the end of Mika Salo, his race ended by a recurring problem with the Ford customer engine. Ironically, the Yamaha that had caused so many problems the previous year for Tyrrell was running smoothly in the back of the remaining Arrows car, driven by Pedro Diniz.

Slowly but surely, Frentzen clawed back the lead that Schumacher had and was within 1 second when, on lap 51, the Ferrari unexpectedly stopped for more fuel and tyres. It soon came to light that Michael had been called in because a faulty fuel rig had left him with too little fuel to finish the race.

Schumacher could have been forgiven at this point for thinking that he was destined to finish third. What both he and Williams hadn't counted on was the overheating brakes. For several laps, Frentzen had been releasing clouds of carbon dust whenever he stood on the brakes and on lap 54, the carbon fibre disk or one of the pads decided it had had enough and caused the German to spin out of a secure second place (destined to be his best ever result).

Coulthard was then left to lead a reduced field of nine cars to the finish (Frentzen is classified as he had completed the required minimum number of laps). Much to my pleasure, Jarno Trulli came in ahead of Pedro Diniz and Nicola Larini scored a point in his first F1 race for Sauber.

As the McLaren came to a stop in the Parc Ferme, the joy of Coulthard and the whole team became obvious. Jo Ramirez (McLaren team manager) was the first to congratulate David, closely followed by Mika Hakkinen who carried the Scotsman all over the paddock before they both mounted the steps to the podium.

The end of a 49 race losing streak was cause enough for celebration for the team, but it also marked the first win for a Mercedes for around 40 years.

Coulthard managed to keep a smile on his face despite losing over £20,000 to Ron Dennis (which will be paid to a UK childrens charity) and having to have his hair died silver in a separate bet with Norbert Haug of Mercedes.

"It's fantastic," David said. "It's even better than winning my first Grand Prix for Williams."