MELBOURNE, March 16: McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton avoided mayhem around him to open the Formula One season with a resounding pole-to-flag victory in a crash-strewn Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The 23-year-old Briton, now with a phenomenal five wins from just 18 races, finished 5.4 seconds ahead of Germany’s Nick Heidfeld in a BMW Sauber.

Germany’s Nico Rosberg celebrated his first Formula One podium with third place for Williams in a race with only seven of the 22 starters still running at the finish and neither Ferrari reaching the chequered flag.

While the champions contemplated their worst start to a season since 1992, Hamilton was ecstatic.

“Coming into a new season, turning over a new leaf, we really wanted to get off on the right foot,” said Hamilton, who missed out on the title last year by a single point to Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.

“It’s quite different to my first win in Montreal, just because that was really not expected,” he added.

The safety car was deployed three times as cars crashed and collided at a circuit with limited run-off areas.

Through it all, and despite the safety car interventions eroding his lead and the pressure of expectation, Hamilton lapped in a league of his own.

Raikkonen retired five laps from the end with an engine problem after a torrid afternoon at the wheel, with the Finn also skidding off on lap 31 after overtaking McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen for second place and rejoining at the back.

Raikkonen grabbed a consolation point however after Honda’s Rubens Barrichello, who had finished sixth, was excluded for exiting the pit lane when the lights were still red. The Brazilian also sent a mechanic flying when he accelerated away before the fuel hose was detached.

Fernando Alonso, Hamilton’s feuding team-mate last year in a season blighted by a spying controversy that cost McLaren the constructors’ title, was fourth on his return to the Renault team with which he won his two titles.

Kovalainen was fifth, his hopes of anchoring a one-two on his McLaren debut dashed by a late pitstop, and set the fastest lap of the race. He might have been fourth had he not hit the pit lane speed limiter button by accident when tearing off a visor strip after overtaking Alonso.

Kazuki Nakajima moved up to sixth for Williams, despite the Japanese tangling with Red Bull’s Mark Webber at the start and again with the BMW Sauber of Poland’s Robert Kubica nine laps from the end.

Stewards gave the rookie a 10-place penalty on the starting grid for the Malaysian Grand Prix next weekend.

Four-time Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais, the first Frenchman to start a season since 2004, joined the elite group of drivers to score on their debuts with seventh place despite his Toro Rosso’s engine blowing two laps from the end.

First corner carnage brought out the safety car on the opening lap and led to the retirement of five drivers including Webber, Australia’s only participant.

Honda’s Jenson Button, one of the immediate casualties after a coming together with fellow-Briton Anthony Davidson and Germany’s Sebastian Vettel, said it had been “mayhem everywhere”.

“Somebody came on the right hand side of my car like a kamikaze and pushed me out,” added Force India’s Italian Giancarlo Fisichella.

Ferrari’s Brazilian Felipe Massa, who started in fourth place, was forced to pit for a new front wing after spinning into the wall.

The safety car was deployed for a second time just before the halfway point when Massa and Red Bull’s David Coulthard collided at the end of the main straight.

The Scot, who had a big accident at the circuit last year when his car flew over the Williams of Austrian Alex Wurz, flew off again and blamed the Ferrari driver.

Germany’s Timo Glock brought out the safety car for the third and final time on lap 44 when his Toyota hit a kerb and flew into the air before plunging into the barriers.

Results:

1. Lewis Hamilton (Britain) McLaren 1:34:50.616; 2. Nick Heidfeld (Germany) BMW Sauber +00:05.478; 3. Nico Rosberg (Germany) Williams-Toyota 00:08.163; 4. Fernando Alonso (Spain) Renault 00:17.181; 5. Heikki Kovalainen (Finland) McLaren 00:18.014; 6. Kazuki Nakajima (Japan) Williams-Toyota 1 lap.

Retired: Sebastien Bourdais (France) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 3 laps; Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) Ferrari 5 laps; Robert Kubica (Poland) BMW Sauber 11 laps; Timo Glock (Germany) Toyota 15 laps; Takuma Sato (Japan) Super Aguri-Honda 26 laps; Nelsinho Piquet (Brazil) Renault 28 laps; Felipe Massa (Brazil) Ferrari 29 laps; David Coulthard (Britain) RedBull-Renault 33 laps; Jarno Trulli (Italy) Toyota 39 laps; Adrian Sutil (Germany) Force India-Ferrari 50 laps; Mark Webber (Australia) RedBull-Renault 56 laps; Jenson Button (Britain) Honda 57 laps; Anthony Davidson (Britain) Super Aguri-Honda 57 laps; Sebastian Vettel (Germany) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 58 laps; Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy) Force India-Ferrari 58 laps.Disqualified: Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Honda +00:52.453.

Fastest lap: Heikki Kovalainen, 1:27.418, lap 43.—Reuters