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.
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 2nd to 10th in the space of a lap before eventually sliding to 14th. Vettel faired a little better.
He took Kimi to rise to 2nd, but Button was soon upon him and on lap 51 with his tyres slowly losing their grip his slide began too. Down to 3rd, 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 11th on the grid and a dreadful start that had left him 15th.
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 6th 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 7th and 8threspectively, 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 9th 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 13th 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 3rdhe may have expected a bit more than one point for 10th 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 11th.
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
all photo's taken from autosport.com
No comments:
Post a Comment