The two McLarens, meanwhile, were tucked up behind eighth-placed
Nelsinho Piquet, with an increasingly aggressive and ragged-looking Hamilton nudging the back of his Finnish team-mate, as over-ambition perhaps got the better of him in his desperate efforts to make his way up through the order following the grid penalty meted out to him for his Montreal misdemeanour.
As Kovalainen found himself unable to battle his way past Piquet – the young Brazilian rookie enjoying by some margin his best race of the season to-date, and certainly enjoying strong straight-line speed – Hamilton was allowed by on lap five at the Adelaide hairpin to see what he could do about his former GP2 Series title rival.
With the two Ferraris pulling away at a rate of knots – Raikkonen 2.6 seconds clear of Massa at the end of lap seven, though believed to be running somewhat lighter on fuel – third-placed Trulli was beginning to peg Alonso's pace, albeit some 5.6 seconds adrift of the two scarlet machines.
Hamilton, meanwhile, was continuing to lock up in his scrappy efforts to pass Piquet, and ultimately proving no more successful in doing so than had been Kovalainen as his pace languished some two seconds a lap shy of the two Ferraris, Raikkonen now almost five seconds to the good at the head of the field.
To make matters worse still, the news
McLaren had been dreading came shortly afterwards, when the race stewards confirmed a drive-through penalty for car #22 for missing the apex of turn 17 and having been deemed to have gained an advantage from so doing. As Hamilton pitted almost straightaway to serve the penalty, he rejoined down in 13th place, just ahead of
Kazuki Nakajima and Sébastien Bourdais, though the latter's rear wing would subsequently start to disintegrate, a legacy of opening lap contact with Button which would ultimately see the luckless
Honda star become the race's first – and incredibly only – retiree.
