China Weekend Review: Slow-burning Shanghai

The 3^rd round of the season arrived at the £300 million circuit that has hosted the Chinese Grand Prix since 2003 with championship leader Lewis Hamilton looking to claim a 5^th Chinese pole position and second win of the season.

The Shanghai Circuit

Qualifying:

The back drop to qualifying was set with Rosberg admitting that he needed to improve his Saturday pace. But the prospect of toppling Hamilton appeared improbable as the world champion set a banker lap on the harder compound tyres over 1.7 seconds faster than his nearest competitor straight out of the blocks. Both McLarens were battling to make Q2 but still were two tenths shy of their goal. But only a mere 0.004 seconds parted the 17^th place Button from Alonso's lap quick enough for only 18^th. Despite this, both drivers were positive and reporting step forwards in the MP4-30. Kvyat only just made it through to Q2 and at the death of the session, Force India's Hulkenberg was pipped and ended up in 16^th . The Manors rounded out the grid with Stevens in 19^th place and Mehri rounding off the grid - both qualifying for the race having complied with the 107% regulation.

 

In the second session Kvyat lined up down in 12^th place suffering from power train issues and still faces a lot to prove following just a season's experience. More optimistic for the race were the Saubers who both reached Q3 for the first time since Austin 2013. Nasr beat his more experienced team mate and they rounded out the top ten in 9^th and 10^th respectively.

Q3 saw the Williams looking for both cars to beat both the Ferrari's that have seemingly out developed them over the winter. But their low down force setup saw this target allude the Mercedes customer team as Bottas suffered from dramatic and frequent oversteer resulting in a 5^th place on the grid- 2 tenths behind Massa in 4th. This saw them in a Ferrari sandwich with Raikkonen in 6^th after a poor Saturday all round. Vettel, for the third time in the opening three races claimed 3^rd behind the Mercs, nearly a second behind the pole lap time.

In the colder temperatures of China, Mercedes were expected to return to the top of the time sheets and this proved to be as Hamilton equalled the record for any driver at one track by achieving at least five pole positions in Shanghai. He joins the ranks of Senna, Schumacher and Fangio with his latest accolade. Having claimed a hat trick of pole positions in 2015, Hamilton set a lap just 0.04 of a second ahead of Rosberg who worked hard to close the distance to his team mate.

The Race:

Hamilton appeared intent on warding off any attack from Rosberg into turn 1 as he positioned his car on the grid at an aggressive angle of attack. As the five red lights went out, the top three maintained their positions into the first corner. An anti-stall for Ricciardo resulted in an awful start and he consequently went backwards through the field.

Hamilton leads into Turn 1

The race offered multiple bouts of wheel to wheel, fair racing, the first of which came from the duelling Bottas and Raikkonen for track position throughout the first sector of lap 1. Sainz Jr. spun into turn 1 on lap 2 and this did well to represent the early struggles on the cold hard tyre compound with full fuel that many were faced with. Grosjean raced with a point to prove and a chequered flag to reach for the first time this season, and this clearly showed as he shot past Nasr for 7^th . The Red Bull of Ricciardo was battling to work his way back through the pack following his poor start, this resulted in familiar scenes of the past as the Red Bull raced with the McLarens but as a sign of the times, this occurred far down the grid for just 15^th position. Familiar scenes at an unfamiliar level.

The evermore impressive Verstappen annihilated Ericsson under braking into the penultimate, who was caught like a rabbit in headlights and fumbled to change gear and resume race pace. (Perhaps something that many thought would happen to the 17 year old instead) It was a true racer overtake, a smooth dive from so far back.

Lap 10 saw Hulkenberg pull off the track due to gearbox issues. Five laps later and up front Hamilton made his first stop of 2.8 seconds to change for a second set of the softer option tyres. A strategy deployed by all of the top 3.

The race's second DNF came in the form of Daniil Kvyat who retired in an enormous plume of smoke on lap 16 as the car burst into flames. Thus signalling the end of a poor day and weekend for the Russian. Soon after Verstappen pulled a mirror move on the other Sauber of Nasr for 9^th place.

This was followed up by what has become the race's main aftermath. Nico's accusation that Hamilton was driving unnecessarily slow in order to drop the German into the grasp of the pursing Ferrari of Vettel as Rosberg feared the dirty air of Hamilton affecting his tyres and downforce. Mercedes responded with the call to Lewis to increase his race pace. He responded, dictating pace to a tee.

With Red Bull having reverted to a Brembo brake system after their Malaysian troubles, Ricciardo tried to copy his junior team mate, Verstappen, but as he went far to deep into the corner with further brake unreliability and subsequently ran wide which only served to better the sport's opinion of Max.

Lap 24 and early spinner, Sainz, pulled off due to another case of gearbox issues. However, he remained composed, reset the system and found a gear on the back straight and resumed. In more wheel to wheel action, Ericsson defended from Ricciardo for 11^th with the much improved Ferrari power unit looking strong against the criticised Renault. Once again, Ricciardo lost the place under braking which have plagued Red Bull over the course of the last two weekends and it took until lap 29 to confirm the place.

Yet another error from Maldonado came as he out braked himself on lap 34 at the pit entry and lost masses of time as he found reverse gear to rejoin the slip road and threw away a potential for a points scoring finish, although he did not completely bin the car off as he had in practice at China in 2014. Then, just a short while after Maldonado had a big spin at turn 7 on lap 41. It seemed as though he was doing his best to make it 3 consecutive DNFs. 

'Crashtor' Maldonado?

Entertaining on the team radio as ever, Kimi, pleaded for track space as he was held up by the two McLarens and Maldonado as he came to lap them.

Jenson Button, although far down the order, was still showing his fight and determination as on lap 48 he refused to forfeit his place to Maldonado for 13^th.. However this culminated in Button achieving what Maldonado had failed to do, and forced the Lotus to retire as he stormed into the rear of Maldonado under braking for turn 1 with both going wildly off the track, thus allowing the closely pursuing Alonso to steal 2 positions. Luckily, damage was only cosmetic and Button was able to rejoin having only lost his right front wing end plate. However as a result of the incident, Button now has 2/12 points on his Super License and was handed a 5 second penalty from the race stewards.

Just 2 laps from the chequered flag, Verstappen stopped on the start/finish straight and disappointingly retired from a well deserved 8^th place. This followed from a rear axle lock up and a painful noise to any F1 fan as the car ground to a halt. The result of which brought out the safety car on lap 54 meaning the race would finish under the current conditions. This awarded Hamilton his second win of the season and Rosberg made for another Mercedes 1:2. Ferrari claimed 3^rd with Vettel and 4^th for Kimi. Williams 5^th with Massa and Bottas rounded out the top 6.

Grosjean claimed valuable points in 7^th at the same venue in which he scored his first ever F1 points. An 8^th place for Nasr ensured more points to keep Sauber 4^th in the constructors ahead of Red Bull
who could only manage a poor 9^th for Ricciardo. Another point was awarded to Ericsson in return for bringing the second Sauber home in 10^th place.

As the race continued under the pace of the safety car, the crowd were still entertained as the track marshals pushed the retired Toro Rosso of Verstappen into the pit wall and was met accordingly by jeers from the grand stand.

Front wings are much more resistant to concrete walls at lower speeds.

Perez missed out on points in 11^th.. Alonso claimed an improved 12th and Button 13^th for McLaren. Will Stevens in his first Manor race beat his teammate, Merhi, to 15^th.

Hamilton's win capped off a phenomenal weekend in which he was fastest in every session and claimed the fastest lap of the race. A commanding display to mark his 10^th consecutive podium. Ferrari already have more podiums than the whole of 2014 after just 3 rounds with the 2015 car which has transformed from mule to thoroughbred over the winter.

As to be expected post race, Lewis looked bemused when faced with the accusations made by Rosberg about him supposedly hindering Nico's pace. In the interviews that followed Nico complained about Lewis compromising his 2^nd place position going as far to infer that Lewis is a selfish person. The rivalry seems set to continue, and the friendship from the days of karting seems a distant memory. Not to the detriment of the sport, of course!

Lewis was once again on another level from the moment he belted up in the W06. His superiority looks set to continue under the floodlights of Bahrain. With the team mates further divided and Nico with a burning desire to 'get one up' over Hamilton, we relish what has the potential to be a repeat of last season's breathtaking wheel to wheel action in Sakhir.

No complaints: potential for a 2015 repeat?