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Winner ... Raikkonen conserves his rubber to outlast his F1 rivals at Albert Park. Source: Joe Castro / AAP
Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen has taken a shock win in the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix, outlasting his rivals as their tyres full apart under them.
The fun-loving Finn beat Ferrari's Fernando Alonso by 12 seconds, with reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel completing the podium in third.
It was a poor day for the Aussies on home soil, Mark Webber finishing sixth with a fighting drive with no KERS and a poor start, while Daniel Ricciardo retired his Toro Rosso with a broken exhaust after he too endured a horror start.
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Raikkonen wasn't thought to be a contender pre-race, but Lotus's two-stop strategy proved crucial to their success.
"It was a pretty nice race, not so difficult," the enigmatic Finn said on the podium. "[Two stops] was our plan before the race and I was pretty confident that the tyres would be okay."
Second-placed Alonso conceded he was disappointed not to be standing on the top step of the podium, but is happy to finally start a season on a positive note.
"We had a very difficult start to the year two years ago and last year, but this year is different," he said. It was a fantastic race for us, fighting all through the race.
"The race was action every lap. I personally enjoy, but at the end I was a bit sad not to win the race."
Vettel's lack of pace was the big surprise. After dominating virtually all of the running throughout the weekend, he simply didn't have the speed to challenge for victory.
"I'm not worried, we have to admit sometimes people are faster," Vettel said post-race. "It's a long season, long way ahead of us. Good points to start."
Webber's hopes took an early blow, making another poor start to drop from second on the grid to be in seventh into the first corner.
New Sauber signing Nico Hulkenberg didn't even make the start, the team withdrawing the German's car just before the start with fuel system problems.
The tale of the early laps was one of tyre woes, with none of the leading contenders able to keep Pirelli's supersoft compound alive for much longer than a handful of laps.
Webber was the first of the frontrunners to blink, enduring a slow stop to change to medium compound tyres on lap five.
Left trapped behind Jenson Button's struggling McLaren, Red Bull switched his strategy and brought him in for an early second stop on lap 17.
Vettel led the early running with Massa and Alonso in hot pursuit, before they too were all hit with graining issues. Vettel pitted on lap seven, followed by Massa on lap eight, then Alonso and the flying Raikkonen on lap nine.
This left Hamilton and Rosberg in front, stretching the maximum laps out of their soft tyres before relenting on laps 14 and 15 respectively.
The Mercedes stops handed the lead to returning Force India driver Adrian Sutil. The German, starting on medium tyres, ran all the way until lap 21 before pitting.
Vettel flew up to the back of Sutil soon after his pitstop but that was as far as he got. The charge wore out his new rubber, forcing him to follow the Force India into the pits.
The pair emerged in the same order but behind Alonso's Ferrari, the Spaniard having made an early second stop to undercut the pair.
As the leaders all started to make their second round of stops Raikkonen started to show the Lotus team's hand, staying out on his second set of tyres until lap 34.
From there, the Finn would make it to the end of the race without stopping again, setting up a surprising victory in the championship's opening round.
Alonso fought valiantly, though, stringing together a sequence of fast laps on either side of his third and final pitstop in pursuit of the black Lotus.
But Raikkonen put a late exclamation mark on his team's strategy, illustrating just how comfortably his tyres were lasting by posting the fastest lap of the race on lap 56 of 58.
Vettel was powerless to do anything but cruise to third, after fighting his way past Sutil soon after their second stops.
Massa, who at one point looked a dark horse to win the race, faded to fourth, the Ferrari team's strategy of running a short middle stint for the Brazilian backfiring.
Fifth on his Mercedes debut was Lewis Hamilton, who held off Webber for sixth, while mid-race hero Sutil salvaged seventh ahead of teammate Paul di Resta.
Rounding out the pointscorers were McLaren's Jenson Button and Raikkonen's teammate Romain Grosjean.
The other Australian in the race Daniel Ricciardo, had a fraught day, dropping to last place on the opening lap, eventually retiring with 19 laps to go.
The threat of rain through the race failed to materialise, with little spits of water hitting falling on parts of the track mid-race.
Raikkonen's win could be a good omen for the season ahead. It's the first time the Lotus team has won the opening race since 2006 - when they were known as Renault - and the first time a Lotus has won the opening race of the season since 1978. On both occasions, they won the title.
The championship's next stop is in just one week's time at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia.
