The 2018 Formula One season finally got underway on Sunday as Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel claimed victory in Melbourne.

Much had been made of the competitiveness of the field this season after Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes' dominance in 2017, with worries over the entertainment value that F1 could provide with such an apparent clear winner.

Fans needn't have worried though as the opening race saw controversy as Hamilton was forced into a second-place finish.

Vettel, his rival and nearest challenger in 2017, took advantage of a Virtual Safety Car to make up the seconds and find himself in an unassailable lead.

The reigning champion had pitted earlier in the race and found himself in control, but Romain Grosjean forced a VSC to come into play - presenting an opportunity for Vettel.

Hamilton's pit-stop had cost him the regular 20+ seconds but with the race slowed down, Vettel's only cost him 11, allowing him to rejoin the race ahead of Hamilton.

The Brit was clearly frustrated after the race, saying that he was unsure what happened.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff explained afterwards that his driver was right to be unsure - Mercedes had got it wrong.

The team had planned for Vettel taking a pitstop during a slowdown and told Hamilton to stay 15 seconds behind as that was too much for the German to make up.

But that wouldn't be the case, it turned out.

"Lewis did nothing wrong," said Wolff. "It was down to a software bug or an algorithm that was simply wrong.

"Our computer said 15 seconds was the necessary time in order to jump us. We were always within this three/four second margin.

"Then suddenly the cameras showed us the pit exit and Sebastian cane out in front of us. We have no explanation yet."

Wolff did speculate on what the problem could have been, feeling that it might have been the wrong situation for them.

"It could be an unlucky situation that Sebastian was just making it into the pits and was accelerating behind safety car line one and two," he said. "I don't know - this is a hypothesis at the moment.

"Therefore he would have lost much less on VSC than Lewis, who had to brake pretty hard in a high-speed zone.

"The software or system we have been using for five years just gave us the wrong number."

So Hamilton has fallen behind in the season through no fault of his own - he'll just have to hope this won't cost him dearly at the end of the year.