Lewis Hamilton was perfect today as he was in qualifying. He’d
taken a dominant pole position in the wet, then consolidated that with a great
start, gapped the rest of the field over the first few laps, looked after the
tyres and fuel and cruised through a two stop strategy to win his third
straight victory of the year, a career first.
His Mercedes was never headed as he closed the gap in the
championship to his team mate Nico Rosberg to just four points who further
proved the dominance of the Silver Arrows with second place. Rosberg’s race was
more eventful, he’d only qualified fourth after spinning on his fastest lap
then made a poor start where he made contact with the Williams of Valtteri
Bottas at turn one to lie only seventh.
He fought back, but in all honesty it was only a matter of
time before he caught and passed the cars in front such is the advantage the
Mercedes cars hold. What is more interesting is that for the third race in
succession Hamilton had the edge on him. He’s only leading the title hunt
because of the one technical failure the team have suffered in Australia to
Hamilton’s car. Without that I think it’s fair to say we would be looking at
four straight Lewis wins.
Surely it’s only a matter of time before Hamilton takes a
grip on this title and never let’s go. I only hope that when we get to Abu
Dhabi at the end of the year whichever driver is in front doesn’t lose the
title because of the utterly stupid double points rule.
Anyway, the Chinese Grand Prix was never really going to
live up to the highs of Bahrain but there was still plenty to take our
interest. Fernando Alonso put the woe of Bahrain behind him to take his first
podium of the year with third, again fighting for all he’s worth and beating
the Red Bull’s which arguably were the quicker car on the day.
He’s once again demonstrating just why he’s regarded as the
best all round driver out there (although that can be entirely disputed with
regards to Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel) as he grinds out results he shouldn’t
really be getting. Kimi Raikkonen is quickly learning he’s going to have to
really raise his game for Ferrari if he wants to get anywhere near Alonso, the
Finn only managing an eighth.
To be fair to Kimi he’s suffered a lot of problems this year
and hasn’t really had a clean weekend, but even without the difficulties it’s
pretty hard to see how he’ll get on terms with the Spaniard consistently this
year.
I think the most interesting talking point though is the Red
Bull drivers particularly with regards to Vettel. He is being consistently out
performed by Daniel Ricciardo who once again out qualified him and then out
raced him despite falling behind at the start to finish fourth with Vettel
fifth. While Vettel faded to 15 seconds behind his team mate, the Australian
closed to just a second behind Alonso at the finish.
Once again we got the unusual message that Vettel should let
Ricciardo through, which to my mind at least, Vettel was perfectly justified in
replying ‘tough luck’. As it turned out he did let him through when he was told
they were on different strategies which then didn’t happen.
Vettel is struggling with the 2014 car. Red Bull team boss
Christian Horner told Sky that Vettel isn’t able to use the tyres the way he
has in the past few years and he hasn’t managed to adapt to them yet. It’s true
that in previous seasons he has been the master at maximising the Pirelli’s,
better than anyone else.
To my mind if you plonked Vettel in a Mercedes right now he
would be able to extract just as much if not more than any driver on the grid.
He is great at extracting the maximum potential out of a good car. As I’ve
written before it’s when the car is not so good that it takes him some time to
get up to speed.
Remember 2012 after he’d already won two world championships
and crushed the spirit of Mark Webber. Well then Red Bull were struggling at
the start and Webber was back in the game, it was only when the car improved
that Vettel then was able to get the car how he wanted and went on to trounce
Webber again.
He’s not an Alonso driver who can drive around problems. He
needs the car to be in his control. Whereas Ricciardo has spent the past two
years driving Toro Rosso’s which lets say were not optimised. He’s used to
driving with a less than perfect car and therefore seems more confident with
the current machinery.
I fully expect Vettel to get up to speed and the fight to
get closer, just as I think Red Bull are the most likely challengers to
Mercedes if one can be mounted at all. They probably have the best chassis, in
the wet where extra grip counts, both Vettel and Ricciardo were great in
qualifying, it’s only the Renault engine letting them down at the moment.
I don’t want to undersell Ricciardo though. He has been
tremendous this year and is grabbing this opportunity and really shaking up the
order at Red Bull right now. It’s such a shame his podium in Australia has
counted for nothing, but he’ll step on the podium again this year and possibly
even win.
It’s great that Vettel is being challenged once again in his
team, but I have a feeling Vettel will roar back to life soon enough. Whatever
though, the current situation doesn’t make me think any less of Vettel, more
than Ricciardo is the real deal and I can’t wait to see how this situation
develops throughout the year.
Nico Hulkenberg was once again showing why he should be
fighting for world championships as he finished sixth for Force India while his
team mate Sergio Perez managed ninth. Despite his brush with Rosberg, Bottas
came home seventh for Williams while
Felipe Massa could only manage fifteenth after smacking Alonso at the start as
he went for a closing gap after making a blindingly fast start which could have
seen him third. As it was he settled in sixth before falling to last after a
botched pit stop.
The final point went to Daniil Kvyat who has now scored in
three out of his first four races for Toro Rosso. The young Russian isn’t even
20 yet and is consistently impressing. Despite qualifying behind Jean-Eric
Vergne he’s really putting the Frenchman’s job at risk as he continues to outperform
him. Vergne had qualified ninth but fell out of the top 10 pretty quickly due
to a tardy getaway.
Behind we should mention Romain Grosjean. He got the
struggling Lotus team into the top 10 in qualifying and would have scored a
point if it wasn’t for a faltering gearbox. Grosjean is really carrying the
team this year after Maldonado had another weekend of errors, although to be
fair he did gain eight places after starting last.
McLaren had another wretched weekend, both cars just not
having the grip to compete as Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen finished just
11th and 13th after starting 12th and 15th.
I thought they would go forward a lot more but they never looked like
challenging for points.
Finally a word on Kamui Kobayashi who’s proving to be the
outstanding driver from the Caterham and Marussia collective. A brilliant move on
Jules Bianchi into the last but one corner secured him at the head of that
particular battle until an error by the officials resulted in the race being
declared a lap early as they showed the chequered flag too early. According to
FIA regulations if the flag is shown the race will be declared there and then.
So not the best race in the world but one which certainly
raises a lot of questions; can Rosberg hold Hamilton’s charge? How long can
Alonso continue to haul Ferrari up the field against increasingly competitive
Red Bull’s? Will Kimi ever match him? Is Daniel Ricciardo the go-to man at Red
Bull?
Whatever happens, the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix in three
weeks time is crucial? If there is no discernable improvement from Mercedes
opposition then the championship is most certainly over for anyone else apart
from Hamilton and Rosberg. And if Lewis makes it four wins on the bounce will
the championship be over for Rosberg too?
There’s surely only so many times you can finish second
before your confidence begins to break. Lewis is crushing the opposition at the
moment and driving better than ever. I always thought if you put Lewis in the
best car he will crush the field. Finally he’s getting the opportunity to prove
it.
Result:
1. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
2. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes
3. Fernando Alonso - Ferrari
4. Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull
5. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull
6. Nico Hulkenberg - Force India
7. Valtteri Bottas - Williams
8. Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari
9. Sergio Perez - Force India
10. Daniil Kvyat - Toro Rosso
11. Jenson Button - McLaren
12. Jean-Eric Vergne - Toro Rosso
13. Kevin Magnussen - McLaren
14. Pastor Maldonado - Lotus
15. Felipe Massa - Williams
16. Esteban Gutierrez - Sauber
17. Jules Bianchi - Marussia
18. Kamui Kobayashi - Caterham
19. Max Chilton - Marussia
20. Marcus Ericsson - Caterham
R. Romain Grosjean - Lotus - Gearbox
R. Adrian Sutil - Sauber - Engine
all photo's taken from autosport.com
No comments:
Post a Comment