Hamilton leads Mercedes 1-2 parade in Shanghai

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg waltzed to a commanding 1-2 Chinese Grand Prix victory.

The Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, were 3rd and 4th.

It was Hamilton-Rosberg-Vettel-Raikkonen-Massa-Bottas after the first lap and it stayed that way the entire race as F1 put on yet another boring parade, albeit instead of the usual Mercedes 1-2 and it was a follow the leader 1-2-3-4-5-6 as the two Ferraris and two Williams paraded behind the Mercedes, no one passing for position.

Hamilton toyed with the opposition behind him the entire race, and could have won by a lot more if he wanted to.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]To show he was sandbagging, Hamilton ran two laps longer than Rosberg on the final pitstop, turned up the pace on those two laps and rejoined with a 6s cushion rather than the 2s advantage he had held prior to the stops.

A safety car appearance with two laps to go – caused by Max Verstappen's Toro Rosso parking on the pit straight in a cloud of smoke from his 'lemon' Renault engine – made things even more comfortable for Hamilton, as the race finished under yellow.

Vettel could not keep up with the Mercedes

Vettel was not a match for the Mercedes once all were onto medium tires and fell away in third.

The Malaysian GP winner then came under late pressure from teammate Kimi Raikkonen who got to within 1.4s when the late safety car came out and had to be content with fourth.

Williams ran a distant fifth and sixth with Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, a minute behind the leaders prior to the field being bunched up by the safety car.

Fernando Alonso considered that McLaren's target was achieved this weekend in China with himself and team mate Jenson Button bringing both cars home to the checkered flag.

As the Honda powered cars continue to gain important mileage, the Spaniard raced to twelfth place after a fairly uneventful race, albeit one in which McLaren progressed while still remaining at the lower end of the competitive scale.

"Obviously it was tough for us as we knew we would not be super competitive here, but the fact that we achieved our target of finishing the race with both cars is very useful. It was also important for me as my longest runs up to now were 12 laps during the winter and 22 laps in Malaysia."

Alonso emphasized that the team was still at a stage of gathering as much information and data as possible, but believes it may also be nearing a considerable move forward. "We keep progressing, so hopefully this will have been one of our last few races where we were lapped and at the back, and we can start to enjoy things a little bit more."

QUOTES

Hamilton leads at the start

Lewis Hamilton
I'm really happy. It was a great race and really positive to have a clean weekend throughout every session. The team did a great job. Going into today we expected it to be close with Ferrari as they had been good on the tires on their long runs. The goal was to run my own race and manage the tires as best I could; I was driving as hard as I could within the constraints of the tires and just trying to stretch out the Option stints for as long as possible. I never really had a threat from Nico but I didn't do anything intentionally to slow him up. Before the second stops I was able to put in a few fast laps to build the gap which I really enjoyed. Then, it was a case of managing the life of the Prime tire to the finish. Overall, I've just got to say thank you to the team for a smooth weekend. We dialed the car in where I wanted and that helped me deliver out there today. It's a great feeling to win again in China in front of all these amazing fans. Their support has been incredible all weekend, so 'xiexie' to all of them!

Nico Rosberg
It was great to beat the Ferrari and the team has done a great job since Malaysia. But I'm also a bit frustrated today, as I saw how much of a difference four hundredths of a second to Lewis in Qualifying can make. Lewis managed his tires a lot in the middle stint and that put me at risk with Vettel right behind. But the team adapted to box me earlier for the second stop and stay ahead of the Ferrari after he had pitted to try and jump ahead through the undercut on new tires. So that worked out – but I then had a long final stint to do and the tires were beginning to give up in the final laps. I'm sure we will sit down and discuss it all now. But in general it's up to me to change the situation. I just need to make a better job on Saturday.

Toto Wolff
That was a great victory for the team but not an easy one; it was as challenging a race as we anticipated this morning. At the start of the race, we had the pace to pull a little gap to the Ferraris, but they were really strong today. We had to keep the Option tires alive long enough and asked the guys to drive in an intelligent way. We chose to stick with the Option for the second stint and had to once again look after them to make them last far enough. We had some good communication during that part of the race, telling each driver what they needed to do to keep the one-two finish safe, and then we switched the pit-stop order for the final stops to protect Nico against Vettel by stopping him before Lewis. But it's clear from today's race what a big jump Ferrari has made over the winter. They were competitive in Malaysia, very strong here in the opening stint and they will be quick in Bahrain, too. Tonight, though, we can take a moment to appreciate a job well done – then get our heads down and start working for Bahrain next weekend.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]Paddy Lowe
A fantastic result for the team to get another one-two finish. Malaysia was not only a good reminder of how difficult it is to win a Grand Prix, but also how much we don't like not winning! This weekend we went out there to improve on our performance and everybody did a great job to achieve that. Ferrari pushed us very hard indeed – especially in the first stint. We were pleasantly surprised to see that Sebastian (Vettel) was the first to fall away and pit on the first set of option tires. We were then able to shadow his strategy and bring home the one-two. It certainly wasn't comfortable and the pressure was very much on both the drivers and the crew to nail the necessary laps and pit stops respectively. It was a great group performance and a well-earned team result.

Maurizio Arrivabene
Today we ended up where we were supposed to be, so we can say we achieved our target. I never promised we’d be making miracles to anyone. Our strategy was to get as close as possible to Mercedes, getting ready to take advantage of any mistake from them. It was no surprise to see that they were strong. Temperatures were different from Friday’s long runs, and this affected the behavior of the tires. I am very happy for Kimi and, above all, I’m happy for Seb’s third podium finish in a row. The boys in the garage did a splendid job, today it was easier to get things wrong than to make the right thing. I don’t have the crystal ball and I can’t tell what our competitors will do in the next races. But I do know that we’ll try our best

Kimi Raikkonen
Considering that my position on the starting grid today was not ideal, fourth place is a good result. My start was ok, I had quite a good jump off the line, and at the first corner I decided to go inside and at the end of the corner I was in the right place and managed to take the Williams under braking – my car is really good at that – and managed to pass them. The car was quite good today; the first set of tires was a bit tricky, but I think it was the same for everybody, and then the next two sets were ok. Towards the end of the race I was catching up, I knew I had the speed and I thought I still had good tires. I could still have had a chance to try and fight for podium but the safety car came in and we know we cannot change that. Today we got close to the podium, from the next race on we have to have a better weekend, doing everything right in qualifying, and we’ll do our best. As a team we scored the maximum today, we know we are behind Mercedes, but we have to be happy with the result. From tomorrow on we have to make another step to be able to challenge them every weekend; we’ll keep working hard as we have done since last year. We trust the way the team is working: now we have to be patient

Sebastian Vettel
All in all we can be really happy. It is only race three and the steps we have made so far are really impressive. Third and fourth place for the Team, makes me really happy, I would have obviously loved to put more pressure on Mercedes: after the first and second stop we were able to be right there, but in the last stint they were able to pull away quite a lot. Basically we are closer than four weeks ago, which is positive, but there is still a lot to do. But what’s very positive is also the fact that we stayed ahead of all the other Teams. Second for us was not really possible today, you have to accept that our opponents were quick. For Bahrain, we hope to get again a bit closer. We have a strong car no matter which condition, that is the feeling

DANIEL RICCIARDO
We got into anti-stall on the start, which hasn’t happened before; we have to look and see what happened. It’s frustrating, that shaped the race and in the traffic we struggled to get by. At least some positives are that we learned a few areas where we need to improve and the smart guys in the team can find a solution. I had a little battle with Daniil, I don’t know if I was optimistic in trying to get past, we were on different race strategies but we’ll sort it out in the debrief. We underachieved today, but hopefully we find something in the next few days and have a better result in Bahrain.

DANIIL KVYAT
This weekend has been a bit tricky, and not the happy ending we would have liked. I saw a lot of smoke coming from the rear of my car, I am not sure what happened but the team are investigating. It’s not an easy situation, but we have to stay strong, I am with the team and we will all work on it together, and we’ll keep our heads high heading into Bahrain.

CHRISTIAN HORNER
It was a frustrating afternoon for us. Daniel had a poor start which put him in the back of the field. Daniil had a reasonable start; we took the different strategic option to start on the hard tire which struggled to warm up in the early laps, and then his race was unfortunately cut prematurely short with an engine failure. Daniel recovered reasonably well to finish ninth after making some decent overtaking moves, but today’s results were not what we were looking for.

Carlos Sainz
It was a very difficult race for us today. We started on Prime tires, but the track was very green and dirty at the beginning, so we immediately suffered a considerable lack of grip. While I was really pushing hard to be on top of Force India for the first stint, unfortunately I made a mistake. It’s a real shame! From then on, as soon as we put the Soft tires on, the balance came back and I was feeling comfortable with the car. Unfortunately we had an issue with the gearbox, which we still have to investigate, which made us lose more time. Without that problem I think we could’ve been in contention for points.

Max Verstappen
It’s a disappointing way to end what was being a great race! To be running in the points positions but then have to stop the car so close to the end of the race is very frustrating. I’m obviously not happy with the final result but as a team we did the best job possible today. The car was performing well and even though we are lacking some top speed, the braking and the downforce we have on the car is really good and that helped me to complete some good overtakes, which I enjoyed a lot.
Felipe Massa
We had a good race today and I managed to get the most out of the car. The team performed very well but we just don’t have the raw speed to catch the cars in front. I will work on my start as that is really the only thing that went wrong for us. We have scored the most amount of points available to us today.

Valtteri Bottas
It was a lonely race for me today. I struggled for race pace throughout, but as a team we got the best result we could have achieved. I would have liked to have kept Kimi behind for longer after getting in front of him at the start, but he made a good move on me to retake the position. There is quite a bit of work to do to catch the cars ahead, but it’s only race three, so there is plenty of time.

Marcus Ericsson
Start on soft tires, after 14 change to soft tires and after 30 laps change to medium tires
“First of all, another great achievement for the team. Our target was to get both cars into the points, and in the end we managed to achieve that objective. My race was quite tough with a lot of fights all through it. I hoped our race pace would have been a bit stronger. I was struggling a bit to get the front tires to work properly, so I could not maintain the pace the way I wanted to. Nevertheless, there were some great fights out there. I think I had a good race, and I am really happy to have finished in the points."

Felipe Nasr
Start on soft tires, after 10 and 31 laps change to medium tires
“It was a great day for the team, as both cars scored points. I am very pleased for everyone. It was not an easy race for us, we were fighting against Lotus and Toro Rosso, and they seemed to have a better pace than us. For myself, I extracted everything I could from the car and also the strategy, so we can be satisfied with this result.

Sergio Perez
We raced very hard today, but in the end it wasn’t quite enough to come away with some points. With the strategy we looked at all the opportunities and switched to three stops quite early in the race, which was the right decision. I was able to push hard all the time with the aggressive strategy and fight with the cars ahead of me. In the final part of the race I was catching Ericsson, but he was just too far ahead to make up the ground. We are still not where we want to be in terms of competitiveness, but there are definitely some positives to take because we made an improvement compared to our performance in Malaysia.

Nico Hulkenberg
It is disappointing to end the race early, especially considering our previous record of solid reliability. It would have been interesting to see how our race would have developed because I made some good progress on the opening lap when I went around the outside of a few cars and then got a good run at Kvyat, which put me up in P12. We had the pace to keep up with the Toro Rossos and Saubers, so it was positive to see our pace being more competitive. It is still too early to say what caused my retirement: the engineers are looking at the issue and still investigating. All we know at this stage is that I lost drive and had to park the car.

Romain Grosjean
It’s the best we could do today and it’s satisfying to have achieved the team’s first points of the season. I’m proud of everyone at Enstone and at the track. It wasn’t an easy circuit for us, with a lot of front limited corners that we don’t particularly like, but we had a strong start, and most of the stints were good too. We’ve made a good job improving the car race after race and it’s great to finally score points. The next race could be promising too!

Pastor Maldonado
I made a great start and we were running strongly early on however later I had a braking issue which made it harder to battle. We also have to understand why the brakes locked-up so easily coming into the pits. We lost a lot of time here and it compromised the rest of my race. It was a fantastic battle with Jenson and we were passing each other very cleanly; a good, fun, exciting battle. Unfortunately, it looks like he got his braking point wrong and went into the back of me. This can easily happen when you’re fighting for position, braking off-line and using DRS, so it’s just one of those things. Certainly our race pace is good, if we qualify a little higher we should be set for a very good time in Bahrain.

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