A chaotic Australian Grand Prix kicked off 2012 with familiar faces at the top of the podium, some interesting pit stop strategies, retirements aplenty, and some DRS action along with non-DRS overtaking. The race was bookmarked with first and last lap chaos, and punctuated with a Safety Car in the middle. Caterham suffered a double DNF with both cars troubled with power steering issues. McLaren had a good run from the start, but Vettel wasn’t going to give up easily.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Stops |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1:34:09.565 | 2 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | +2.1 | 2 |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | +4.0 | 2 |
| 4 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | +4.5 | 2 |
| 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | +21.5 | 2 |
| 6 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber | +36.7 | 2 |
| 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Lotus | +38.0 | 2 |
| 8 | Sergio Pérez | Sauber | +39.4 | 1 |
| 9 | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | +39.5 | 3 |
| 10 | Paul di Resta | Force India | +39.7 | 2 |
| 11 | Jean-Éric Vergne | Toro Rosso | +39.8 | 2 |
| 12 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | +57.6 | 2 |
| 13 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | +1 Lap | 2 |
| 14 | Timo Glock | Marussia | +1 Lap | 2 |
| 15 | Charles Pic | Marussia | +5 Laps | 4 |
| 16 | Bruno Senna | Williams | +6 Laps | 4 |
| DNF | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | Lap 46 | 4 |
| DNF | Heikki Kovalainen | Caterham | Lap 38 | 4 |
| DNF | Vitaly Petrov | Caterham | Lap 34 | 1 |
| DNF | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | Lap 10 | 1 |
| DNF | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | Lap 1 | 0 |
| DNF | Nico Hülkenberg | Force India | Lap 0 | 0 |