Alonso cruised to a 10 second victory, hardly putting a wheel wrong in a performance which will surely leave his competitors nervous for the rest of the season. Image: Simon Williams
Alonso cruised to a 10 second victory, hardly putting a wheel wrong in a performance which will surely leave his competitors nervous for the rest of the season. Image: Simon Williams
Fernando Alonso put in a peerless performance in the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday, while Kimi Raikonnen pipped Britain’s Lewis Hamilton and reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel to second, despite a damaged nose cone.
Ferrari’s double world champion leapfrogged Raikonnen to head into the 1st corner in 2nd place, from the before he and teammate Felipe Massa performed an impressive double overtake on pole starter, Lewis Hamilton on the 4th lap.
From then on in Alonso cruised to a 10 second victory, hardly putting a wheel wrong in an ominous performance which will surely leave his competitors nervous for the rest of the season.
Behind Alonso, the race was shaped by tyre strategy with the softer compound lasting a mere 4-6 laps but giving superior lap times. Most of the top 10 had chosen to qualify, and therefore start, on the softs but Vettel and McLaren’s Jenson Button sacrificed qualifying performance for the chance to start on the harder-wearing medium tyres and so put in a longer first stint.
That decision was undoubtedly vindicated for Button as he outperformed his car to pick up a very credible 5th place in a McLaren which has looked off the pace all season.
As for Vettel, only Red Bull will know whether his choice of tyres was a stroke of genius or a missed opportunity.
The German triple world champion climbed from 10th to 2nd by virtue of his longer initial stint and some aggressive overtaking, but rejoined the race after his final pitstop a huge 11 seconds behind Hamilton and Raikonnen, with just 5 laps to go.
Needing to claw back over 2 seconds per lap the task looked impossible, but Vettel’s pace on the soft tyres was blistering and by the final lap he was chomping at Hamilton’s rear wheels.
Hamilton famously overtook Vettel on the final lap of the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix to take victory as the Red Bull’s tyres deteriorated and it looked like the German was destined to repay the favour this time around to grab the final podium slot. However, a mistake into the second to last corner cost Vettel a fraction of a second and he passed the chequered flag just a few feet behind the Mercedes driver after an exhilarating final lap, leaving the Red Bull driver to ponder what might have been.
Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen started and finished in second place, but his race was far more eventful than the result indicated. The Finn started poorly and dropped behind the two Ferraris to 4th by the 1st corner, before losing the tip of his nose cone on a collision with McLaren’s Sergio Perez on turn 6. The damage did not appear to affect the car’s aerodynamic performance significantly, however, so the team let him race on rather than opting to replace the nose. It was a bold decision, but one that paid off as the Lotus driver gradually regained his 2nd place.
Vettel’s Red Bull team mate Mark Webber was forced to start in last place due to a gearbox change and pitted on lap 1 to change to the harder medium tyre, a strategy which seemed to have paid off massively as he climbed from 24th to 10th in clean air, despite a collision with Jean-Eric Vergne driving for Red Bull’s sister team, Toro Rosso. But his front-right wheel, and his race, came undone on lap 18, narrowly missing the other Red Bull in the process.
It was a good day for all the leading Brits, with Scotland’s Paul Di Resta coming in 8th in the Force India, giving the team their first points ever at the Shanghai Circuit.
