By Simon Baggus
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| A perfect start for Hamilton in the Chinese GP |
So after Hamilton topped Practice, slammed the silver arrow on pole and romped to victory in the race all seems a full gone conclusion for the rest of the season doesn't it?
All seems so simple yet so complex, as when you look at the figures and detail in which Hamilton is perfecting his race craft to adapt the best from the new rule changes, he is just blowing every single competitor out of the water, including his team mate Nico Rosberg. Yet he is making it look easy.
Hamilton had a clean start and the race was effectively won from their. By lap 10 he had a 10 second cushion and by the time he made his pit stop, on lap 16, he was 30+ seconds ahead of Alonso in second as others around him had made their pitstops. Hamilton went longer than any of the front runners on his first set of tyres, to keep a comfortable lead after his first stop.
Lap 21 and Hamilton was 6 seconds ahead, lap 31 and he was 13 seconds ahead. Hamilton took his final pitstop on lap 39 and come out with a 12 seconds advantage to cruise to the finish, which fell a lap early, to his surprise. Hamilton had a winning margin of 17 seconds come the flag, but he also had the best fuel usage and best tyre management of all the front runners to take three wins in a row. A first for the Brit.
Hamilton has re written the record books also and is now the outright and most successful British driver to take pole positions. His 34th in total. Amazingly he is still second in the championship, only by four points now to team mate Nico Rosberg.
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| Hamilton, the all time leading Brit for pole positions |
Rosbergs weekend was blighted by problems. Straight from the start he had telemetry issues which meant he had to be extra cautious in the race with fuel and it also hampered his start. He dropped to 7th in the opening laps, had contact with a Williams and had to fight all the way to the flag, showing no matter how dominant you are, when your stuck behind traffic, it becomes harder. He still grabbed second with about 15 laps to go. Rosberg took his third straight second place, only finishing behind Hamilton.
Rosberg made use of ERS and some good race craft to get past the Williams and Red bulls and was up to third by lap 22, chasing down the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.
Fernando pitted from second on lap 32 and thus promoted Rosberg up to second for a brief moment, still some 19 seconds behind Hamilton at this stage of the race.
Lap 41 after the pitstops have taken place and Rosberg makes a move stick on Alonso after slowly but surely closing the gap on him lap by lap and the german was clearly annoyed after being hampered by problems, which would have surely slowed his progress. He had enough and told his team over the radio he is no longer listening to fuel usage.
Alonso once again had an incredible race, taking the Ferrari beyond its true potential and landing third at race end, dedicating the podium finish to long serving friend and mentor, Stefano Domenicali.
Alonso made a great start moving into third place after bouncing off the side of Massas chassis, almost snatching second from Vettel and hounding him around until about lap 7, when things started to settle.
Vettel pitted and then Alonso, who was up to second for the remainder of the race, ends up ahead of him and only 3.7 behind Hamilton. It was pretty uneventful for Alonso from then on, although Rosberg was slowly closing on him lap by lap. Lap 33 and Alonso makes his second stop from 2nd and when all other stops play out, Rosberg is on his tale and Alonso loses 2nd on lap 41.
Alonso had a controlled race then to fend of Ricciardo to the flag, although it did go down to the wire.
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| Team orders played a role in the Chinese GP |
Ricciardo put his car on the front row for the Chinese GP and had the better of his team mate, Vettel, once again in the race. Team orders played a role once again as Vettel was ordered to move over for Ricciardo, but in a turn of Bitterness, Vettel declined these team orders saying 'tough luck' to the response on why they asked him to move.
Vettel initially had the better start of the two and Ricciardo was down in fourth in the opening laps but had a brilliant drive to get past his team mate. After Rosberg passed Vettel on lap 22, Ricciardo tried on lap 23 only to be rebuffed by Vettel. The team oder on lap 25 and the pass on lap 27 as Vettel ran wide into turn one, gifted Ricciardo Fourth who finished almost 20 seconds ahead of Vettel on the road come the flag.
What is evident in this intra team battle is that Ricciardo has adapted better to the new rules and Vettel has conceded he is struggling and is being beaten 'fair and square' by Ricciardo. Which to me, only highlights his credentials and talent and brings into question how great of a champion he really is.
By the way i am no Vettel hater, this is just my opinion. Ricciardo is not even a race winner yet but is taking Vettel to the cleaners in every race he has finished. Simple facts. The fact Vettel cannot extract the potential from his Red Bull where he is the reigning and 4 time world champion is saying something and the fact Alonso is in a slower car than Vettel yet is beating him and beating Raikkonen like he is, shows what true race craft is about.
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| Your 2014 podium |
A pretty boring race then for the rest of the field with little action and little to talk about. Apart from mandatory pit stops and how poor McLaren were again.
The rest of the top ten finished like this;
6, Hulkenberg 7, Bottas 8, Raikkonen 9, Perez 10, Kvyat.
Hulkenberg once again goes about his business and notches another 6th place finish, leaving him fourth in the championship standings. He always manages to extract more than Perez and he is being rewarded for this through the championship. Ahead of both Red Bulls is a statement.
Bottas, after his first lap incident, kept Hulkenberg honest through out the race and shadowed his every move. Little separated them come race end and again Bottas is showing their is a new Finn in town. Finishing one place ahead of Raikkonen
Raikkonen again had a poor race by his standards and just cannot get a grip of his Ferrari. The fact he isn't even in the top ten positions in the drivers championship standings is telling its own story and to finish 8th, almost a whole minute down the road, behind his team mate in third, is not good news for him. The strongest, dream pairing, is showing to be all but a dream.
Perez again gets into the points to help with the constructors championship with Force India, who are in third place. His race was average compared to his third place in Bahrain, finishing 30 seconds behind his team mate. Perez has shown this through out his career, the fact he is like a one hit wonder, then fades into the back ground for the rest of the season.
Kvyat done a brilliant job again to finish in the top ten after starting 13th on the grid and is showing he is up for the job after critics thought he was not ready, you can sense a steely determination about Kvyat and i think he will be a name for the future.
Outside the top ten then was Button in 11th and Magnussen in 13th, split by the Torro Rosso of Vergne. In a race that McLaren want to forget, Button and Magnussen cast, down beat figures, clearly showing their frustration, that they are going backwards rather than forwards. A second consecutive non points finish for the pair is not good enough and they will both be relieved there is a three week break, to sort the mess that has befell them.
Maldonado had an uneventful drive to 14th place, going through the motions in a poor car, with a poor driver.
Massa who had problems early on fell to the back of the pack after his one minute pitstop and faced an up hill struggle to achieve anything, showing once again, like with Rosberg, this year, progress is hard to come by. From 21st he did battle back to 15th come race end but for a top ten, maybe a top five team, 15th is really poor.
Gutierrez finished 16th on the road in a car that is still only marginally better than the Caterham and Marussia teams.
Talking of the teams at the back of the field, Kobayashi finished best of the rest in 17th, catching Bianchi with a hand full of laps left, Bianchi finishing in 18th, Chilton finishing in 19th on his 23rd birthday, taking him to a total of 23 races finished in a row, still going with his 100% record and the last finisher being a very poor Erricson. Is he really cut out for Formula One?
Two non finishers in Grosjean, who had a gear box problem, and Sutil who had power unit issues.
A race that wont go down in history as a classic, but a race that has set things up nicely when we return in 3 weeks time. Intra team battles at an all time high, Drivers and teams alike under performing. Team principals stepping down and one man on top, Lewis Hamilton.
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| Three in a row for this man |
It is safe to say i am LOVING this years championship.
See you in three weeks time for the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit De Catalunya.
In the mean time, head over to my partners group 'AddictedToF1' to catch up with and get all the latest news, gossip, pictures and info on all things F1, you would be silly not to.
Also head over to my 'FormulaOne2014' Facebook page and follow my blogs all season long. A like wouldn't go a miss. Thank you.
Simon Baggus
P.s, Apologies for being a few days late, i had an extra long Easter break!
Take it easy guys!
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