The Chinese Connection
With the safety car being pulled into duty on lap 54 of a 56 lap Chinese GP, the end of the race was bit of a anticlimax. However other than Hamilton suffering a hot butt (literally as his seat was inexplicably heating up!!) the race was pretty standard fare.
It was a standard day in office for the Silver Arrows. After locking down the front row post qualifying, the duo of Hamilton and Rosberg were never challenged. Hamilton crucially controlled the pace in the second segment of the race going slow enough to aggravate his team mate but doing so meant that he preserved enough life in his tyres to ensure that he could up the pace as needed which he did by posting the fastest lap times just before his second pit stop. In the process he built up a 6 second gap from his team mate. Rosberg did not seem to have any moves to mount a serious challenge. He was also kept on the straight and narrow by Sebastian Vettel who kept the gap close enough to capitalise if his fellow German compromised his tyre strategy by attempting to challenge the leading Mercedes.
Ferrari tried the undercut using Vettel at the pit stop but was unable to work their magic as in Sepang with Merc seemingly wiser in the third race of the season. Towards the last few laps of the race a scintillating battle between the Ferrari teammates seemed in the offing. Raikkonen had tyres that were 4 laps newer then Vettel's and was reeling in his team mate at a steady pace. But any hopes of seeing a Vettel-Raikkonen match up were dashed by the safety car coming in at lap 54 with two more laps to go and staying till the end, on account of Vestappen's engine blowup. It was an unfortunate closure to what had been another stellar piece of racing from the young gun.
Alonso did what he usually does, putting in a fantastic last segment on soft tyres to reel in his team-mate Jeson Button who was having a right tussle with Pastor Maldonado. Fights with Maldonado rarely seem to end well with Jenson tagging the back of Maldonado's car sending the Venezuelan into retirement. Having being close enough to the two to get tangled in the mess, Alonso kept his nose clean to make up two places. Jenson was lucky to be able to finish the race. Hope to see Alonso get back to achieving great results with mediocre cars. The incident was to be investigated after the race.
In the end it was a one two for the Silver Arrows followed by the Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen. After three races the team order seems to be Mercedes followed by Ferrari, Williams and Sauber. Next week Bahrain after which the show moves on to Europe where the team order will be really shaken down.
