Hamilton takes back control

The Chinese Grand Prix wasn't great but it has delivered a lot of potential ructions for the future. I confess I've not actually seen the race, but I did hear it on the way to the World Endurance Championship taking place at Silverstone today. A lot of focus on radio goes on the leaders which is fair enough, but it does give you a harder time when trying to decipher where the best battles were although there were some obvious moments. Anyway, a truncated discussion of the Chinese race now follows.

Star of the race

Max Verstappen is delivering on the hype that's surrounded him since he was announced as the youngest ever Formula 1 driver last year. After starting down in 13th he put in an assured and confident performance with late braking moves on Sauber's Marcus Ericsson and Force India's Sergio Perez into the hairpin combined with a good strategy. Unfortunately his race went up in smoke a couple of laps from the end. At only 17 he's still learning his craft and that's got to make the drivers at the top take notice.

The winner

Lewis Hamilton dominated the Chinese race, a perfect riposte to Ferrari's unexpected Malaysian win two weeks ago. He pretty much led from start to finish with only his team mate Nico Rosberg and Kimi Raikkonen taking a few laps from him during the pit stops.

He started as he meant to go on. He lined up the car from pole position at such an angle towards the inside of the track that there was no doubting his intentions to want to block any attempt by Rosberg to get by. Either that or he just over shot with a final warming up of the tyres.

Lewis got away well and from then on just managed the gap. A lot is said about Lewis' aggressive nature in racing, but he's one of the best at just ticking off the laps as he takes control of the race. So in control was he that Rosberg thought his Mercedes team mate was backing him up into the Ferrari's.

Ah yes the Prancing Horse might not have galloped quite as strongly as it did in Malaysia but it was most certainly there, both of them this time with Sebastian Vettel tailing Rosberg for most of it, before Kimi Raikkonen gave him something to think about towards the end of the race. The Ferrari's served notice that they are at least going to make a race of it this year.

It certainly rattled Rosberg, because as Lewis continued on his serene way, just making sure everything was ok with his car and cruising it home to the finish, Nico was coming under attack from Vettel, especially with the undercut at pit stops. This is what the number 6 Mercedes felt was compromising his own strategy. He believed Lewis was doing this deliberately, something that has been denied.

Whatever, it didn't bother Lewis and he came home for his 35th career victory. Rosberg was second, with Vettel and Kimi lurking not far behind. I think we'll see a lot more silver and red battles as we go through the year.

The battles

Which brings me nicely on to some of the other highlighted battles of the day.

The Mercedes and Ferrari fight was one of strategy. Verstappen's moves were of controlled opportunism. Daniel Ricciardo was one to watch as he fell down the field after a terrible start from seventh on the grid. He made few moves which just didn't come off, in fact he seemed far less in command of the car than he has been, particularly compared to last year.

Perhaps his brilliant 2014 has made his expectations higher, I don't think he was predicting that in 2015 he'd be fighting for the lower reaches of the top ten and this has made his driving slightly off so far this year. Nevertheless, he came back through the field to eventually reward himself with ninth.

The main headline grabbing battle has to be that of the chase McLaren's Jenson Button gave to Pastor Maldonado. It was a little bit epic and always tense, you never know what Maldonado might do after all! As these two scrapped, Fernando Alonso on faster tyres was catching his team mate quickly, as the three were joined Button made his move and clattered into the back of Pastor at turn one, not his fault this time. It earned the Brit a five second penalty and points on his license. 

Alonso moved through and gladly took the places. He had reached the dizzying heights of 13th. You see, there's action all the way down the field in Formula 1. Maldonado was out, but Button continued to 15th. It might not seem like it but McLaren are getting closer. They may have dropped out of qualifying in the first round again, but they are racing and not just with themselves. I think once we reach round five in Spain they'll be on the edge of the points.

Things of note

To me this result confirmed that Ferrari will be a factor at most races this year. They were still there at the end of the race despite Mercedes pace advantage. Which leads me to make this bold statement. Kimi will be back on the podium soon, and might even sneak a win. He can be relentless when given a chance of victory. He's certainly not lost his racers edge, his opening lap confirmed this as he took both Williams cars to rise from sixth to fourth. 

While Ferrari are edging closer to the front, the Williams cars, the closest challengers to Mercedes on pace last year are not in contention. They may not have been all that far behind today with fifth for Felipe Massa and sixth for Valtteri Bottas, but a threat for victory? I think not. It's such a shame for one of the nicest looking cars around and a great team. They've got plenty of time to try and extract more pace though. 

At least they're better off than Red Bull, as Ricciardo struggled to the points Kvyat had a miserable afternoon retiring with engine failure. The team and Renault really need to raise their game before all these threats of withdrawing from the sport are too hard to say no to.

Sauber are still making hay while other teams struggle. An eighth and a tenth for Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson respectively is another strong result. It just goes to show that Ferrari's improved power unit has not only helped their own team but helped push their customer back into points paying contention.

Points are also what Lotus have as well. Romain Grosjean crossed the line in seventh. A strong showing that earned the team points they should have had already. As Grosjean impressed, Maldonado was heading for escape roads in the pit lane. He may not have been to blame for his accident today, but even with video evidence you're still thinking but he must have done something ...

Both Manor Marussia's finished as well. Which is nice.

The title chase

So Hamilton now leads the title chase by 13 points from Sebastian Vettel. Rosberg is a further four behind. 

Hamilton is looking confident, composed, has all the answers. Vettel is the underdog and believes there are more wins to come and has no doubts that he should aim for the championship if he can.

Rosberg is whining and looking for excuses. I like Rosberg he's a good driver, but he needed to put one over on Hamilton this weekend and he didn't. He nearly matched him in qualifying, he possibly could have had a go at the win too, but he didn't. In fact he was more concerned about the Ferrari's.

I think Hamilton has got Rosberg mentally beaten already. Bahrain is just a week away, with high temperatures expected, could this be another race that might be Ferrari's for the taking? And if it is, will Mercedes starting having just tiny tiny thoughts, that perhaps this year Hamilton's challenger won't be Rosberg at all, it'll be Vettel. If there's anyone at all...

all photo's taken from autosport.com

The Chinese Grand Prix Forecast

Round 3 - China, Shanghai International Circuit

Laps - 56

Pirelli compounds - Medium and soft. With lower temperatures than Malaysia a fortnight ago, will Ferrari be able to use their gentle caress on the tyres to the same effect? Pirelli predict an easy two stopper.

DRS Zones - Two, on the start finish straight and between turns 13 and 14.

Weather - Looks to be a dry weekend with maximum temperatures of 22C, but it is meant to be cloudy rather than full on beaming sunshine.

TV - Live on Skysports F1 with highlights on the BBC (UK 7am lights out)

Pick a winner - Despite the recent Ferrari victory taken by Sebastian Vettel, it remains to be seen whether they can do it again, on this basis I'm going with a Lewis Hamilton victory to reassert his dominance.

Hot Topics:

Continuing on the who will take the win theme, can Ferrari do it again? I don't think we should expect Ferrari to suddenly be Mercedes challengers all the time. Last time out in Malaysia it was a equal fight and the silver cars were beaten fair and square but the high temperatures played into the hands of Ferrari which seemed to be able to manage their tyres better while Mercedes in their bid for ever more down force have engineered higher rear tyre degradation into their car.

However, like in Australia, China will have cooler temperatures so could we see a return to the Mercedes dominance? As with any good experiment we need more evidence and I think we'll have to wait a couple more races yet to see if Ferrari are really going to make a fight of this all year.

Lewis Hamilton meanwhile has said Ferrari's win has been blown out of proportion and that it wasn't a disaster for Mercedes to lose. This might be so, but it did highlight how not used to being challenged Mercedes had got as they made muddled radio communications and seemed to lose their way on strategy due to the pressure from Ferrari. It's going to be exciting to see what will happen if they come under attack again.

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has claimed his team will quit if they don't become more competitive. Engine supplier Renault have also alluded to withdrawing if their competitive state doesn't change. Perhaps if they both stopped having a go at each other and worked harder instead of name calling over regulations they all agreed to, they might end up getting somewhere. It just smacks of the big bully in the playground finally getting their comeuppance and going to cry in the corner. At the moment Red Bull is less likely to give you wings and more likely to make you whine like a ...

Bernie Ecclestone is sharing more epically bad ideas, chief of which was a all women's Formula 1 championship. Of course the cars wouldn't be as quick, and the the grid would be made up of a bunch of nobodies who've achieved nothing note worthy. It's an insulting concept. One day there will be a woman who will turn the tide and be successful at the top Formula, and on that day she'll have truly achieved something brilliant. Winning in a women only Formula 1 is to achieve nothing, there just isn't the depth of talent at the moment. He also brought up bringing double points back again, so we know Bernie can't have been thinking right as that idea was rightly shelved after uproar at its addition last year.

Nico Rosberg's title bid. I think already it's being talked about a lot. Refer to the title chase section below for more, because it's not going well and it needs to change quickly.

Predicting the headlines:

Kimi Raikkonen to show his potential with a good weekend for Ferrari.

Ferrari to maintain their victory challenging pace or Mercedes to blow them away. I think it's pretty black and white on that.

Rosberg has lost his way.

Manor to get both cars to the end.

Ricciardo to bring some joy for Red Bull.

Lotus get in the points with Grosjean.

Lotus have an accident with Maldonado.

McLaren to show further improvements.

Force India to get left behind.

Toro Rosso rookies continue to impress.

Under the radar:

We'll leave the money issues that will potentially destroy our favourite sport well alone this week. It's fairly obvious what should happen, but will they learn, no no, don't be silly. On the plus side Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost recognised that teams should help Grand Prix promote their races.

McLaren-Honda are still very optimistic for a team who've competed in two Grand Prix this year and recorded one non start, two retirements and a last placed finish. It says a lot about the joy Jenson Button expressed on the team radio when he realised he was catching cars in Malaysia. The long straight in China will hurt their down on power engine but watch out for them. They're going to spring a surprise sooner rather than later.

The title chase: 

It's going to take a few races to really get a handle on what might happen during the season and who other than Mercedes will be the main players but after Malaysia I think it's safe to say we might have a challenge from Ferrari. This coming race will give us more data to see if Sebastian Vettel or Kimi Raikkonen can be year long challengers. They seem pretty confident they can at least get a few more wins, and wins equal points, enough of those and you got something going on.

For now we have to assume it's still going to be between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. Hamilton we know has started well, he's got two pole positions, a win and a second place. More importantly in the title chase, he's crushed Nico Rosberg.

Rosberg was meant to come into 2015 with all guns blazing, but he's been rather tepid. He's made mistakes, come up short on pace and really not looked like the driver who ran Hamilton so close last year. His whole demeanour is of a man who knows he's up against a brilliant talent that he just can't live with anymore.

He's even been saying things like it's good if Vettel can interfere with the title battle as it might help him. Why say something like that? It's like he's already saying he can't beat Hamilton on his own and he's going to need a piggy back. He's in real danger of falling into a support role. Never mind about Vettel helping him, if the Ferrari drivers do get involved in the action, it's more likely they'll rule him out of the title race completely. He needs a win this weekend, I don't think anything else will do. At the very least he must beat Lewis.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Hamilton dominates while Red Bull fight begins to grow

Lewis Hamilton was perfect today as he was in qualifying. He’d taken a dominant pole position in the wet, then consolidated that with a great start, gapped the rest of the field over the first few laps, looked after the tyres and fuel and cruised through a two stop strategy to win his third straight victory of the year, a career first.

His Mercedes was never headed as he closed the gap in the championship to his team mate Nico Rosberg to just four points who further proved the dominance of the Silver Arrows with second place. Rosberg’s race was more eventful, he’d only qualified fourth after spinning on his fastest lap then made a poor start where he made contact with the Williams of Valtteri Bottas at turn one to lie only seventh.

He fought back, but in all honesty it was only a matter of time before he caught and passed the cars in front such is the advantage the Mercedes cars hold. What is more interesting is that for the third race in succession Hamilton had the edge on him. He’s only leading the title hunt because of the one technical failure the team have suffered in Australia to Hamilton’s car. Without that I think it’s fair to say we would be looking at four straight Lewis wins.

Surely it’s only a matter of time before Hamilton takes a grip on this title and never let’s go. I only hope that when we get to Abu Dhabi at the end of the year whichever driver is in front doesn’t lose the title because of the utterly stupid double points rule.

Anyway, the Chinese Grand Prix was never really going to live up to the highs of Bahrain but there was still plenty to take our interest. Fernando Alonso put the woe of Bahrain behind him to take his first podium of the year with third, again fighting for all he’s worth and beating the Red Bull’s which arguably were the quicker car on the day.

He’s once again demonstrating just why he’s regarded as the best all round driver out there (although that can be entirely disputed with regards to Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel) as he grinds out results he shouldn’t really be getting. Kimi Raikkonen is quickly learning he’s going to have to really raise his game for Ferrari if he wants to get anywhere near Alonso, the Finn only managing an eighth.

To be fair to Kimi he’s suffered a lot of problems this year and hasn’t really had a clean weekend, but even without the difficulties it’s pretty hard to see how he’ll get on terms with the Spaniard consistently this year.

I think the most interesting talking point though is the Red Bull drivers particularly with regards to Vettel. He is being consistently out performed by Daniel Ricciardo who once again out qualified him and then out raced him despite falling behind at the start to finish fourth with Vettel fifth. While Vettel faded to 15 seconds behind his team mate, the Australian closed to just a second behind Alonso at the finish.

Once again we got the unusual message that Vettel should let Ricciardo through, which to my mind at least, Vettel was perfectly justified in replying ‘tough luck’. As it turned out he did let him through when he was told they were on different strategies which then didn’t happen.

Vettel is struggling with the 2014 car. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told Sky that Vettel isn’t able to use the tyres the way he has in the past few years and he hasn’t managed to adapt to them yet. It’s true that in previous seasons he has been the master at maximising the Pirelli’s, better than anyone else.

To my mind if you plonked Vettel in a Mercedes right now he would be able to extract just as much if not more than any driver on the grid. He is great at extracting the maximum potential out of a good car. As I’ve written before it’s when the car is not so good that it takes him some time to get up to speed.

Remember 2012 after he’d already won two world championships and crushed the spirit of Mark Webber. Well then Red Bull were struggling at the start and Webber was back in the game, it was only when the car improved that Vettel then was able to get the car how he wanted and went on to trounce Webber again.

He’s not an Alonso driver who can drive around problems. He needs the car to be in his control. Whereas Ricciardo has spent the past two years driving Toro Rosso’s which lets say were not optimised. He’s used to driving with a less than perfect car and therefore seems more confident with the current machinery.

I fully expect Vettel to get up to speed and the fight to get closer, just as I think Red Bull are the most likely challengers to Mercedes if one can be mounted at all. They probably have the best chassis, in the wet where extra grip counts, both Vettel and Ricciardo were great in qualifying, it’s only the Renault engine letting them down at the moment.

I don’t want to undersell Ricciardo though. He has been tremendous this year and is grabbing this opportunity and really shaking up the order at Red Bull right now. It’s such a shame his podium in Australia has counted for nothing, but he’ll step on the podium again this year and possibly even win.

It’s great that Vettel is being challenged once again in his team, but I have a feeling Vettel will roar back to life soon enough. Whatever though, the current situation doesn’t make me think any less of Vettel, more than Ricciardo is the real deal and I can’t wait to see how this situation develops throughout the year.

Nico Hulkenberg was once again showing why he should be fighting for world championships as he finished sixth for Force India while his team mate Sergio Perez managed ninth. Despite his brush with Rosberg, Bottas came home seventh  for Williams while Felipe Massa could only manage fifteenth after smacking Alonso at the start as he went for a closing gap after making a blindingly fast start which could have seen him third. As it was he settled in sixth before falling to last after a botched pit stop.

The final point went to Daniil Kvyat who has now scored in three out of his first four races for Toro Rosso. The young Russian isn’t even 20 yet and is consistently impressing. Despite qualifying behind Jean-Eric Vergne he’s really putting the Frenchman’s job at risk as he continues to outperform him. Vergne had qualified ninth but fell out of the top 10 pretty quickly due to a tardy getaway.

Behind we should mention Romain Grosjean. He got the struggling Lotus team into the top 10 in qualifying and would have scored a point if it wasn’t for a faltering gearbox. Grosjean is really carrying the team this year after Maldonado had another weekend of errors, although to be fair he did gain eight places after starting last.

McLaren had another wretched weekend, both cars just not having the grip to compete as Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen finished just 11^th and 13^th after starting 12^th and 15^th. I thought they would go forward a lot more but they never looked like challenging for points.

Finally a word on Kamui Kobayashi who’s proving to be the outstanding driver from the Caterham and Marussia collective. A brilliant move on Jules Bianchi into the last but one corner secured him at the head of that particular battle until an error by the officials resulted in the race being declared a lap early as they showed the chequered flag too early. According to FIA regulations if the flag is shown the race will be declared there and then.

So not the best race in the world but one which certainly raises a lot of questions; can Rosberg hold Hamilton’s charge? How long can Alonso continue to haul Ferrari up the field against increasingly competitive Red Bull’s? Will Kimi ever match him? Is Daniel Ricciardo the go-to man at Red Bull?

Whatever happens, the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix in three weeks time is crucial? If there is no discernable improvement from Mercedes opposition then the championship is most certainly over for anyone else apart from Hamilton and Rosberg. And if Lewis makes it four wins on the bounce will the championship be over for Rosberg too?

There’s surely only so many times you can finish second before your confidence begins to break. Lewis is crushing the opposition at the moment and driving better than ever. I always thought if you put Lewis in the best car he will crush the field. Finally he’s getting the opportunity to prove it.

Result:

1. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes

2. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes

3. Fernando Alonso - Ferrari

4. Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull

5. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull

6. Nico Hulkenberg - Force India

7. Valtteri Bottas - Williams

8. Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari

9. Sergio Perez - Force India

10. Daniil Kvyat - Toro Rosso

11. Jenson Button - McLaren

12. Jean-Eric Vergne - Toro Rosso

13. Kevin Magnussen - McLaren

14. Pastor Maldonado - Lotus

15. Felipe Massa - Williams

16. Esteban Gutierrez - Sauber

17. Jules Bianchi - Marussia

18. Kamui Kobayashi - Caterham

19. Max Chilton - Marussia

20. Marcus Ericsson - Caterham

R. Romain Grosjean - Lotus - Gearbox

R. Adrian Sutil - Sauber - Engine

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Chinese Forecast

Round 4 of the Formula 1 world championship is the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit. It could be another rain effected weekend as the current forecast shows that qualifying may be wet for the third time in four races.

Not that that will change the outcome too much anyway. Let’s face it the likelihood is a Mercedes on pole position and then very possibly a win too. Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton have both won here before and as shown by the rate they pulled away in Bahrain after the safety car at up to three seconds per lap they have plenty in hand to ward off a challenge at the moment.

Rain has often shaken up a Chinese Grand Prix so the soft and medium tyres that Pirelli have brought may not be used as much as the intermediate or wet tyres. Saturday does look slippery but Sunday is also cloudy so you never know if a shower may burst out.

China is quite a technical track with the first two sectors full of corners some of which are particularly long helping teams such as Red Bull who once again have a very tidy aerodynamic package which will help them make up the deficit their Renault power unit has to the Mercedes.

Of course this is rather neutered by the 1.17km straight in sector three where they will lose a bunch of time, but it could mean that Red Bull take advantage in the first two sectors to be still fairly close in overall lap time. I would think that they will be the main challengers to Mercedes this weekend.

There are once again two DRS zones, one on that back straight and the other on the start finish straight which should make overtaking particularly easy this weekend for those out of position and needing to pass slower cars in a hurry.

At the front you cannot look past the Mercedes duo for the fight for victory, but I do think Red Bull will be slightly closer, although in the battle for the win I don’t think so. Red Bull will want at least a podium weekend especially since their appeal to get Daniel Ricciardo’s second place from the Australian Grand Prix back ended in disappointment.

Basically the way I see it is that the FIA approved fuel flow sensors are new technology and are not perfected yet. It seems like Red Bull did not think it was working properly so used their own back up and ignored the FIA’s instructions during the race.

Red Bull probably did not exceed the maximum fuel flow rate but to reinstate them would open a can of worms as other teams which did follow FIA directives despite their own misgivings about the fuel flow sensors could kick up a fuss and just use their own technology which would not always be FIA approved.

I think it probably turned out better this way although if it was proved the fuel flow had not been exceeded I’d have given Ricciardo his points back and docked the team theirs. Whatever though it’s going to be an interesting weekend for Red Bull as they fight their way back to the front. Sebastian Vettel and Ricciardo look to have a nice simmering rivalry going on and in a way Ricciardo has been the main pace setter for the team so far this season as Vettel has been afflicted by problems.

In fact I’d love to see a continuation from the Bahrain race of the intra-team fighting that was going on throughout the field, particularly in Mercedes, Red Bull, Force India and Williams. It was spectacular, forceful but clean fighting.

Ferrari too looked like they had Kimi Raikkonen finally giving Fernando Alonso a run for his money. 

It’s been an interesting week for the team as much liked team boss Stefano Domenicali resigned after another poor start to a season for the team. He’s replaced by Ferrari’s north American director Marco Mattiacci. He has not been involved in the F1 world but Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said he wanted a Ferrari man. He’s also said he will be more involved in the F1 operation.

I’m not sure how welcome that will be by the wider F1 community as he is still complaining about the direction the sport is taking. The way I see it this fuel efficiency Formula is not much different from what we’ve had before. They’ve always had to look after things and in the 1980s often ran out of fuel too as they hadn’t saved enough and that’s looked at as some of the glory years.

It looked to me at the last race that the cars were running fairly flat out a lot of the time, even the tyres aren’t as critical too so they can push that little bit more. Formula 1 had to change otherwise they’d have lost Renault, Mercedes and Honda wouldn’t be coming back next year.

The only thing is, and which they’re working on, is a way of making the engines louder. Although I like the low thundering sound and the whine of the turbo and energy recovery systems but yes, it could do with being a few decibels louder especially as that is a great part of seeing the cars live.

Anyway another race like Bahrain soon and the critics will have to shut up. Any change to the regulations wouldn’t be fair. Ferrari have suggested giving more fuel etc or increasing the fuel flow rate but that’s pointless. Mercedes can work to these regs fine, it’s up to the other teams to get on with it and compete not moan that the regulations which have been known for two years now are not fair. Do a better job!

Anyway, as regards the race, Rosberg will definitely want to fight back but I think for most races Lewis will have the edge. Even when Nico was quicker in Bahrain he couldn’t beat his team mate but it should still make for some thrilling racing as he tries to topple Hamilton, although he is still championship leader. Red Bull will establish themselves in second with another podium while the other Mercedes runners will be making up the top 10.

Nico Hulkenberg will want to get a podium soon after Sergio Perez’s third while Williams really need to take advantage of their obvious pace while managing their tyres better. McLaren will hope they start making progress as since Australia they look to have slipped back despite Jenson Button saying they have made progress. Time for him and Kevin Magnussen to prove it.

I hope he shines again soon as since Australia he hasn’t shown such spectacular form against Button. In fact of the rookies it’s Daniil Kvyat for Toro Rosso that’s really impressing.  Where does this leave Ferrari? They’ll be up there in the top 10 but it’s going to take quite some time before they win again. Anyway with the fights that should be going on in teams and between teams, it’s going to make for another exciting Grand Prix.

all photo's from autosport.com

Alonso masterful in China

It’s still early stages but Fernando Alonso stormed back into the title chase as he became the third different winner from three races in China. It was another good race as various strategies played out, but in reality it didn’t look like anyone was going to stop the lead Ferrari driver today.

And that’s what he looked like again, after much talk of how his team mate Felipe Massa had out qualified him in the last four races, Alonso beat him in Q3, and trounced him in the race. What’s more he pretty much dominated everyone else to take his first of the year and the first since the German Grand Prix 13 races ago.

As happens most times with the Ferrari’s both Alonso and Massa leapt forward from their respective grid positions of 3^rd and 5^th to move into 2^nd and 3^rd positions right from the off squeezing Kimi Raikkonen down to 4^th and keeping pole sitter Hamilton in sight.

The top seven started on the soft tyre which wasn’t able to last much longer than 5 or 6 laps at even a vaguely competitive pace, the front runners were then obliged to pit early for the longer lasting medium compound as they started a 3 stop strategy.

Alonso though was already proving the rule that the Ferrari is a better racer than qualifier as Hamilton proved the opposite for Mercedes when they swapped positions before the pit stops.

This meant that other drivers who had started on the mediums were catapulted forward as the leaders pitted, but Alonso and Lewis picked them apart quickly, and it soon became clear that Sebastian Vettel’s strategy of starting on the mediums was not going to work.

After the many pit stops were completed, Alonso once again swept back into the lead into turn 1 ahead of Vettel before the Red Bull driver had even made his final stop. There was nothing going to get in the way of the Spaniard today, it was a pretty masterful performance.

He may have only won by 10 seconds from Kimi Raikkonen, but once he was in the lead he looked in complete control despite when due to pitting he dropped back down the field. His engineer even came on the radio to tell him he didn’t have to push so much, to which he responded by saying he wasn’t as he then set the fastest lap.

It was that kind of day for Alonso, everything went right, and after a dodgy crash last time out in Malaysia he’ll be glad to get a victory under his belt and really launch his title challenge. He’ll be especially happy with the way the car looked after the tyres; Ferrari is looking very strong at this stage of the season.

He looked utterly elated as he celebrated because he knows he has to take every opportunity for a win when the front runners are so close together. He did that today, and he’ll already be looking forward to Bahrain so he can do it again.

Tyres

There has been a lot of talk about the tyres, and a lot of criticism directed towards Pirelli especially by the likes of Mark Webber and Hamilton. They feel the tyres degrade too quickly and it’s not real racing because most of the time the drivers are conserving their rubber and aren’t able to push flat out the way they want.

It was quite interesting to hear the likes of Jenson Button coming on the radio to ask if he should fight certain drivers or just let them pass to preserve the life of the tyres so as to make his strategy work. That’s not the sort of thing you want to hear during a race.

Having said that, Pirelli were asked to make tyres like this by the teams so as to improve the racing, therefore they can’t really complain when certain teams (Red Bull) don’t like it because they can’t manage the tyres as well as others.

It might not be pure racing, but the rules are the same for everyone and no one 

can deny that it’s providing an entertaining spectacle. The different strategy options in China today made for an interesting element as the early runners of the soft tyre then had to fight their way past the longer opening stints of the medium shod runners which didn’t work out until the end of the race.

The real question is whether that spectacle is now too artificially enhanced? It’s walking a tightrope but it’s not like we’re seeing completely random results.

The first three winners of the year have been, Kimi, Vettel and Alonso, is anyone surprised that these world champions have won? The best will always keep on winning whatever random elements are provided.

Fight for the podium

Kimi Raikkonen moved into second place in the championship after taking a decent second place from second on the grid. There were a few incidents along the way though. First off he fell to fourth at the start, but he didn’t do anything rash, kept it calm as always and kept pace with the front three.

It was an incident with Sergio Perez’s McLaren that nearly ruined his day. After the first round of pit stops to get rid of his soft tyres he came upon Perez who was still marching on with his first set of mediums. It had already been noted in the BBC commentary that Perez was moving around a lot while defending.

Kimi moved to the outside into turn 6 and had a wheel alongside but Perez squeezed him over onto the grass which resulted in the Lotus tagging the back of the McLaren causing damage to the front wing and nose cone. Fortunately for Kimi it didn’t cost him too much and they didn’t bother to change it, but I think Perez should have given Kimi a bit more room on that one.

Kimi later charged up to the back of Hamilton and by stopping 3 laps earlier than the Mercedes on the final round of stops was able to leap ahead and then kept him at bay for the rest of the race. An impressive result given the damage he sustained, which Lotus estimate cost him 0.25 per lap. Wonder if he could have got a bit closer to the lead?

Lewis Hamilton just about managed to hold on to the final podium spot. His medium tyres seemed to go off as Sebastian Vettel looked to make his opposite strategy pay off as he reeled him in with four blistering laps on the softs at the end. Only a dab of understeer and a slide kept the Red Bull from overhauling Lewis on the last lap.

Lewis will be disappointed as Mercedes qualifying pace failed to translate into the race. Still a second consecutive podium is a bonus he probably wasn’t expecting at the start of the year, but a driver like him will want more when he’s able to start at the front. He’s having better time of it than his team mate though who suffered a second retirement of the year and generally didn’t seem to have much pace while he was out there.

Vettel’s fourth was a good recovery from 9^th on the grid, but Red Bull will be concerned that they weren’t even in with a shout of victory today. Vettel drove well though and revealed a steelier side to him over the weekend. When asked to comment about the team orders incident in Malaysia, he pretty much said and I am paraphrasing here, that he’d do it again and Webber deserved it after his failure to help him on other occasions. In other words he wants a fourth title and he’ll do anything to get it. He still leads the title chase after three rounds.

Daniel Ricciardo stars at last

Ricciardo has blatant potential and finally he was able to show it for Toro Rosso. He qualified an impressive 7^th but the fact he was able to maintain that position showed that was no fluke even with a nose change caused by an incident unseen by the cameras.

Yes a few top runners dropped out but he would still have picked up a few points. He’s taken an edge on his team mate Jean-Eric Vergne who could only manage 12^th today and when there’s a potential Red Bull seat up for grabs next year, performances like this will be noted.

Mark Webber’s disastrous weekend

I’m pretty sure that after the controversy of the team orders fiasco in Malaysia he wanted to show just what he could do. Well team mistakes and an unfortunate incident with Vergne’s Toro Rosso put paid to that.

In Q2 he was under fuelled and stopped out on track. As the car didn’t have enough fuel to provide a sample he was dropped to the back of the grid. He started on the softs and got rid of them after a lap. He charged in the clean air so that when Vettel pitted Webber was ahead on track.

It could have been an interesting battle to say the least but it was now that Mark dived to the inside of Vergne and clattered into him for which he got a 3 place grid penalty in Bahrain. A quick nose change followed but a lap later he was out as the right rear wheel wasn’t attached properly, but it did nearly take out Vettel which would have made for an interesting talking point.

No dramatic comeback for Mark, not even a point. Vettel is now a wins worth of points ahead.

Rest of the top 10

Jenson Button played a good game of letting everyone pass him as he went through the race on the only two stop strategy to get points. He ended up 5^th which after the recent troubles McLaren have had is a good result. They expected more from their upgrades though, but at least it’s some kind of progress. Perez had a weekend to forget in the other McLaren winding up 11^th.

Massa brought the second Ferrari home 6^th. He was nicely tucked up behind Alonso after the first few laps but stopped a lap later than his team mate to discard the soft tyres and this dropped him further back in the pack from which he never recovered. He spent a lot of time stuck behind di Resta, but unfortunately for Massa you do get the feeling that if it had been Alonso more progress might have been made. He’s still in good form though.

Paul di Resta survived a clash with his Force India team mate Adrian Sutil to claim 8^th place. Sutil couldn’t survive an attack by Esteban Gutierrez who launched his Sauber into the back of the Force India taking them both out. Gutierrez now gets a 5 place grid penalty at the next race.

Romain Grosjean is having a tough time of it. He really doesn’t look on it this year at the moment. Whether that’s because mentally he is still being effected by the events of 2012 or it’s a problem on just his car is hard to tell, but he needs to up his game quickly. He still took 2 points for 9^th.

Nico Hulkenberg was leading ahead of Vettel for a while in the early stages as he too used the medium tyres first strategy. A switch to softs at his 2^nd stop instead of using them at the end dropped him way out of contention though and he couldn’t make the ground back up so 10^th will be a disappointment.

Good race for Valteri Bottas in the Williams as he ended up ahead of his team mate Pastor Maldonado despite starting behind him. Williams though have failed to score a point when expectations were for so much more.

Jules Bianchi again headed the newer teams and continues to impress in the Marussia.

Eight drivers were to be investigated after the race for using DRS in a yellow flag zone, but no action has been taken. 

Next race in Bahrain just a week away

This season is shaping up to be even closer than last year, the top 4 drivers are 

with a fourth place finish of each other and there’s many other potential race winners besides them. All at least appears to be quiet on the Bahrain front, although there have been a few small protests. Hopefully, it’ll be a quiet weekend, full loud noisy action packed racing.

all photo's taken from autosport.com 

Rosberg takes dominant first win

Today in China Nico Rosberg took his Mercedes to a perfect first career victory in a superb display that matched his equally perfect pole position lap.

In what was an action packed race he was out in front almost the entire time, looking completely at ease he hardly put a wheel out of line as he disappeared to dominate the Grand Prix by over 20 seconds. 

In Friday practice the Mercedes cars had looked quick as they have done all season, but again the longer runs weren’t up to the pace of McLaren or Red Bull and so there was a real worry that despite locking out the front row of the grid, come the race their advantage would be lost.

But they played with the setup and hoped more than anything that they’d gone in the right direction. They had, and with Rosberg they used their strategy to perfection. I’ve often been critical of Nico as he seems to go backwards in the races unable to quite make his tyres last as well as his team mate Michael Schumacher, but no such issues struck him today.

Whatever his team did, it worked. Rosberg got a brilliant start; streaking away he was on his own as the field got to turn one. Immediately he pulled a gap while simultaneously conserving his tyres beautifully.

The stops worked well, never once getting involved in heavy traffic defined by his second and last stop when he exited just ahead of the battling Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton. If he’d been stuck behind them his only real rival Jenson Button might have had a sniff of victory.

But while most of the front runners went for a three stop strategy this silver arrow managed on just those two stops, showing just how far they’ve come with their tyre management.

Perhaps the cooler temperatures worked in their favour, it’ll certainly be interesting to see how they perform in the much hotter climate of Bahrain next weekend but today they were untouchable and Rosberg was delighted in what was in many ways a breakout performance.

Schumacher continues with bad luck

Of course this glorious result for one Mercedes was in stark contrast to the fortunes of Schumacher who started on the front row for the first time since his comeback. Schumacher I would generally say has had the stronger race pace for the past year, managing his tyres better than Rosberg but today that didn’t look like it would be the case.

But he retired after his first pit stop when the team failed to attach his right rear tyre properly on lap 13, but he’d already lost five seconds to his team mate and had exited behind Jenson Button, so whether he could have come back from that is unlikely.

He certainly could have had a podium chance. A shame we didn’t get to see it play out but he’ll take heart that he has a race winning car under him for the first time since 2006.

The action Behind: Two stops vs three

Behind the Mercedes there was an epic race of different strategies converging towards the end resulting in some fantastic scraps through the field with cars having to fight their way back through the pack depending on who had the fresher tyres at the time. 

It's so tight at the moment that you often had the likes of Hamilton and Webber dropping from the top five after their pit stops to 13th or lower.

You didn't know what would work out until all the stops were completed; there wasn't much in it but three stops generally seemed the way to go so you'd have fresher tyres near the end and would be able to attack. 

However with only eight laps left second and third positions were in the hands of two stoppers Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel with the three stoppers of Button, Hamilton and Webber closing in.

On lap 48, Kimi’s tyres simply died and he went crashing down the order, from 2^nd to 10^th in the space of a lap before eventually sliding to 14^th. Vettel faired a little better. 

He took Kimi to rise to 2^nd, but Button was soon upon him and on lap 51 with his tyres slowly losing their grip his slide began too. Down to 3^rd, three laps later Hamilton was through and a lap later with only one to go his team mate Mark Webber muscled his way past too. Still fifth wasn’t a bad result from a poor 11^th on the grid and a dreadful start that had left him 15^th.

Red Bull Development split

Red Bull still has a good race pace but they have to sort out their qualifying. It can’t help that their drivers also seem to have a very different preference to the direction they want the team to take with development. 

In China, Webber was racing the newer exhaust configuration while Vettel had reverted to one they used at the start of testing. Concerning times for the team that dominated last year, but it’s still early in the year and they’ll be satisfied that they’re not even a race win away from the top of the championship. Mark Webber only nine points adrift from Hamilton having scored a hat trick of fourth places.

McLaren salvage podiums

Another driver who is rooted to the same position this year is McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton who finished in another third place, this time though he had to come through from seventh place after a five place grid penalty for changing the engine and possibly cost him a chance of winning.

He could have had a better race as he was caught up in traffic for a lot of the time and had to make a number of incisive moves including on his 2011 nemesis Felipe Massa which cost him crucial time, so in the end third wasn’t a bad result at all. But his team mate Button will wonder if he could have won this too.

When he made his third stop he was eight seconds ahead of Rosberg so would have been around twelve seconds behind when he exited the pits on fresher tyres. 

It looked like there was the potential for an epic last few laps for the win, but trouble at the stop meant he was delayed by over six seconds and came out into the train of cars headed by Kimi at the time. Button forced his way back through the pack, but any chance of the win had gone. 

 I think McLaren will be disappointed at this stage of the season. Overall they look to have the best general package but haven’t maximised it for various reasons, although they do top both championships.

The other top ten battles

Romain Grosjean finally made it through more than three laps and after a battling drive came through to record a 6^th place finish and his first points.

The Williams pair of Bruno Senna and Pastor Maldonado were involved in the main scraps throughout the race finishing 7^th and 8^threspectively, Maldonado finally getting the points he deserved. Williams continue to impress this year, it’s certainly nice to see them on an upward curve and great to see Senna and Maldonado really battling hard and showing their worth.

In 9^th we have Malaysian race winner Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari. It may seem a poor result and actually it is, but Alonso drove better than the finish showed. He was hanging onto the front runners well and challenging Lewis at one point.

But while Lewis was able to pass and scamper away from the Williams cars, Alonso struggled to get by. Attempting to pass Maldonado around the outside at turn 7 he got on the marbles, ran wide and that was that. He slipped down the order and was just able to get back past the Sauber’s to score a couple of vital points. 

Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa had a better day than of recent, but still could only manage 13^th on his two stop strategy, but he was in the mix and at least that’s progress. Major Ferrari updates are coming for Spain, they can’t come soon enough.

Kamui Kobayashi rather flattered to deceive for Sauber, although he ran strongly at various points, but having started 3^rdhe may have expected a bit more than one point for 10^th however he did get fastest lap. Sergio Perez came back down to earth with a clichéd bump as he failed to replicate his success from Malaysia with only 11^th.

Force India and Toro Rosso aren’t far behind in the midfield battle but were never in contention for points while the ‘new’ teams plodded around for an hour and a half.

Television, reflection and future

Just a mention for the television coverage, after the first two races with Sky the BBC finally went live this season, and I got to say I missed it. It was as good as always, Sky aren’t doing a bad job at all but in effect they have the exact same set up as the BBC and with the exception of the wonderful Skypad can’t really do much more. It’s also quite fun to spot Sky people in the BBC coverage and vice versa or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway that was round three of the season and already we have our third different winning driver and manufacturer. It was a pretty epic race with excitement all the way down the pack. It should be noted the DRS zone made passing far too easy last year but this time it was an option, but not a certainty which is what it’s there for and they got it perfect and made the racing all the more exciting.

It’s so close at the moment it’s hard to predict anything, the only certainty is that for right or wrong reasons we’re off to Bahrain next weekend where it could be all change again. 

all photo's taken from autosport.com