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 3rd and
5th to move into 2nd and 3rd positions right
from the off squeezing Kimi Raikkonen down to 4th 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 9th 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 7th 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 12th 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 5th 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 11th.
Massa brought the second Ferrari home 6th. 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 8th 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 9th.
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 2nd 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 10th
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.
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.
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