Minardi's Mark Webber took the glory in his home Grand Prix debut by finishing 5th in the Australian Grand Prix, scoring the first World Championship points for the team since 1999 and becoming a national hero in the process.  Meanwhile Michael Schumacher droned on to score a preditable race win for Ferrari, well ahead of the Williams driven by Juan Pablo Montoya and the McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen.

The carnage of the first lap allied to mid-race retirements meant that only eight cars finished the race, Eddie Irvine's Jaguar performing steadily to finish 4th and team mate Pedro de la Rosa taking 8th, albeit five laps behind the leaders after several stops.

It was the titanic David and Goliath battle between Australia's Mark Webber and the Toyota of Mika Salo that captured the attention of the public and the media.  The Minardis of Webber and Alex Yoong had been running 5th and 6th at one point, but when the Malaysian driver lost time with a couple of minor incidents, he was overtaken by Salo who set about reeling in Webber.  The gap came down from half a minute until they were together with three laps remaining.  Salo tried hard to pass, but Webber held his own and forced the Toyota driver off line - and into a spin.  Although Salo recovered to finish 6th, scoring Toyota's first World Championship point on their Formula One debut, it was Webber's two points for 5th place that earned the biggest applause.  Many of the media gathered at the far end of the pit lane, ignoring the podium ceremony, to witness Webber's return to the Minardi garage where the celebrations were akin to winning the World Championship.

Given that Minardi, with their Malaysian driver and sponsors, now travel to Malaysia for the second round of the World Championship, the timing could not have been better.