2017 Formula One Chinese Grand Prix

[Jeff]

Like i said, the 1% i was talking about wasn't meaning an absolute time..
1% is huge obviously. If one driver is really 1% slower then another one in the same car, he shouldn't be in Formula 1

You said drivers make more then 1% difference in pace. Now you say they dont, guess i just dont get what you mean then.

 

[Peter Hooper]

This should be epic today . All sorts of unknown to look forward to with the changeable conditions and some surprise results could well be on the cards.

 

[Kari Kranck]

Early morning quote: Racing is "Contact Sport", let them race
grins in skyTV.

Mika Salo, former F1 Driver, FIA Driver Steward.

 

[Bethonie Waring]

Lewis Hamilton led the Chinese Grand Prix from start to finish to take his first win of the 2017 season. Behind him, mixed track conditions and limited practice running led to a crazy race to remind fans just what Formula One can be like.

Drivers were greeted with a damp track as they arrived at the Shanghai circuit this morning. Rain ahead of the race had cleared up, but the track was still drying. Most drivers decided against taking the risk and started the race on intermediate tyres.

Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz was the only driver to start on slick tyres and, though the formation lap proved most of the track was dry, the Spaniard had a difficult start off of the line, falling to the back of the field as he tried to manage the damp start/finish straight.

That didn’t mean none of the intermediate running drivers ran into trouble. In the middle of the field, Force India’s Sergio Perez and Williams’ Lance Stroll made contact, sending Stroll into the gravel. Neither driver was penalised for the incident, but Stroll’s stranded Williams led to a Virtual Safety Car.

A number of drivers, including Sebastian Vettel, pitted for slick tyres during the Virtual Safety Car, but not leader Hamilton.

There was little chance to see if the track was ready for slick tyres after the green flags returned, as almost as soon as the green flags returned, Antonio Giovinazzi crashed on the start finish straight. The Sauber driver collided with the pit wall, sending debris across the track.

The safety car was brought out, and cars were ordered to run through the pit lane so marshals could clear the remains of Giovinazzi’s Sauber.

This gave Hamilton, Raikkonen, Bottas, and Max Verstappen the perfect opportunity to switch to slick tyres without losing position.

Before the safety car could return to the pits, though, Bottas span, dropping him down the order and out of the lead battle.

When the green flags finally returned to the track, it was strategy that would define the rest of the race but, with no race simulations on Friday, nobody was quite sure just how long the tyres would last. Mercedes and Ferrari both opted for soft tyres with the aim of making it to the end of the race, whilst Red Bull put super-soft tyres on their cars.

Verstappen, who had started back in sixteenth, had enjoyed a fantastic start. Between some impressive overtaking and drivers ahead facing problems, the teenager had managed to make his way to fourth on the grid by the time the safety car returned to the pits. It didn’t take him long to find a way around the outside of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who appeared to have engine problem, to get up into third, behind Ricciardo and Hamilton.

Only a few laps later, he found his way past Ricciardo, and started to try and close the gap to Hamilton.

Vettel didn’t have such an easy task. The German was stuck behind his team-mate more than ten laps, finally finding a way past up the inside of turn six, a popular overtaking spot during the race. By this point, Ricciardo had managed to pull away from the battling Ferraris, but it didn’t take Vettel quite as long to close in on the Australian. The pair ran side by side, wheels touching for a moment as Vettel found his way past.

Now it was time for tyres to start to play their parts. Ferrari and Mercedes had both assumed the soft tyres would make it to the end of the race, but both Hamilton and Raikkonen were complaining about tyre wear, meaning pit stop strategies would come into play again.

Verstappen was the first front runner to pit after he locked up and flat spotted his supersoft tyres. The Dutchman emerged from the pits in sixth, undoing some of the work he had done in the first part of the race.

After the rest of the leaders pitted, Verstappen was the only driver to lose a position, dropping down to third whilst Vettel moved forward.

From that point on, there was no real fight for the top spot, with Hamilton building up a strong gap to Vettel and finishing the race over six seconds ahead of the German. The gap back to the third place battle was even bigger, with Verstappen nearly 40 seconds behind Vettel. Verstappen would argue that was down to Romain Grosjean.

Grosjean, running in eleventh, had already been lapped by Hamilton and Vettel when Verstappen came across him. The Red Bull driver had Ricciardo right on his tail, and being stuck in traffic wasn’t on his agenda. However, he wasn’t close enough to the back of the Haas for marshals to bring out the blue flags. Verstappen complained over the radio, saying that the turbulent air coming off of the back of the Haas was giving him understeer, but the blue flags didn’t come out.

Verstappen didn’t manage to come any closer to Grosjean and, with one eye on his team-mate in the mirrors, crossed the line in third. A fantastic race for the man who started sixteenth.

Raikkonen, Bottas, Sainz, Magnussen, Perez, and Ocon completed the top ten.

There were five retirements throughout the race. Besides Stroll and Giovinazzi, Stoffel Vandoorne, Daniil Kvyat, and Fernando Alonso all retired from the race.

It looked like a fantastic race for Alonso, who had been running in eighth before a fuel driveshaft problem forced him to retire.

Hamilton and Vettel leave China top of the championship, both with 43 points. Verstappen is third with 25 points, and Bottas fourth with 23. Mercedes once again lead the constructors’ championships, but only by a single point.

1- Lewis Hamilton – Mecredes

2- Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari

3- Max Verstappen – Red Bull

4- Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull

5- Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari

6- Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes

7- Carlos Sainz – Toro Rosso

8- Kevin Magnussen – Haas

9- Sergio Perez- Force India

10- Esteban Ocon – Force India

11- Romain Grosjean – Haas

12- Nico Hulkenberg – Renault

13- Jolyon Palmer – Renault

14- Felipe Massa – Williams

15- Marcus Ericsson – Sauber

OUT – Fernando Alonso – McLaren

OUT – Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso

OUT – Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren

OUT – Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber

OUT – Lance Stroll - Williams

 

[paracletus]

Ferrari obviously very close to mercedes in performance.
Astonishing.

 

[Matthew Hull]

Ferrari obviously very close to mercedes in performance.
Astonishing.

Vettel was criminally unlucky with the SC and the fact that they had to go through the pitlane due to the accident being on the main straight. We might have been robbed of another great battle.

On another note I can't believe people are complaining about overtaking. It's about quality not quantity. Drivers really having to work to get past making a fantastic spectacle is better than cruising past someone on the straight like we're used to seeing. We saw some top drawer overtaking in that race, truly a fantastic race.

 

[Dovi design]

What a great race it has been for Fernando until the car broke down

 

[Celestiale]

Gonna be one of the best seasons the last 20 years

 

[Joerg Baermann]

Great race, Verstappen deserved todays title, shame that Alonso didn't make it.

 

[muzikant]

Verstappen was good!

 

[Mark Aalberts]

Alonso

https://soundcloud.com/user-795793826/f1-2017-april-9-china-teamradio-fernando-alonso-race

Kimi and Valteri should be ashamed by their performances btw. The Red Bull car is a second slower than them and yet they find a way to finish behind them.

 

[Celestiale]

Alonso

https://soundcloud.com/user-795793826/f1-2017-april-9-china-teamradio-fernando-alonso-race

Kimi and Valteri should be ashamed by their performances btw. The Red Bull car is a second slower than them and yet they find a way to finish behind them.

What is the second he is saying? Something with rain? Kinda hard to understand with that engine sound.
Agree on the rest. But it's not their fault to be average, or slightly above in Raikönnens case, while Red Bull has probably two of the best 5 drivers of the grid

 

[Ari Antero]

Alonso

https://soundcloud.com/user-795793826/f1-2017-april-9-china-teamradio-fernando-alonso-race

Kimi and Valteri should be ashamed by their performances btw. The Red Bull car is a second slower than them and yet they find a way to finish behind them.

Râikkônen appeared to question the strategy at the time, asking the team over the radio: "So where we going to finish? Because I have no front end and it’s 20 laps to go…"

 

[Mark Aalberts]

Râikkônen appeared to question the strategy at the time, asking the team over the radio: "So where we going to finish? Because I have no front end and it’s 20 laps to go…"

For sure Ferrari is to blame to for their horrid strategy in this case, but even then there was enough time left to get in front of them. Instead of finding excuses look what Vettel did, he was even behind Kimi and look where he ended up, that's not just strategy alone. Max and Ricciardo where suffering from understeer to causing excessive wear on the front tires.

Anyway don't get me wrong, I am a huge Kimi fan but more of the Kimi from the McLaren era. Current Kimi should quit racing, for sure he will have his decent races and results this year once he gets grips with the car but that's about it,... nothing spectacular. Ferrari showed again why they will not win another team championship, however looking at what Bottas did they might get away with it.

 

[grahamw]

Great race by Max and as I expected with a faster track and helpful weather conditions Lewis was always likely to take the fight to Ferrari more specifically Vettel.

Not sure Kimi is the driver he once was but may be as he gets more time in the car that will change through the season.

I think Mercedes will soon start questioning the appointment of Bottas if things don't start falling in to place as he clearly should be top 4 based on performance of the cars.

The Red Bull team should be very pleased with this result to split the Ferrari's and Mercedes with clearly a slower car shows that their drivers are really pulling out the stop's once again Max show's his youthful exuberance combined with skill can actually pay off and he can surely only get better with maturity.

Was sorry to see Gio go off in the Sauberagain after the qualifying spin may be needs to not push so hard an F1 car and a GP2 car are quite different but no shocks that both Stroll and Vandorne not staying on the track they really aren't pulling up any tree's in F1 and can see their season not ending well.

The only reason Ericcson keeps the drive is he is slightly more experienced than the alternatives but may be Sauber should have took a punt on Gasly and Gio in the same team guess they would lose to much money dropping Ericsson.

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Those are some great shots (I like especially Antonio Giovinazzi in the Sauber flying past the pitlane) and thanks a lot for sharing such a comprehensive report Bethonie ;-)

May I add a few shots from the weekend?

Lewis Hamilton racing in front of full grandstands at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday:
F1 GP - Shanghai 2017 - Lewis Hamilton by Dirk Steffen, on Flickr

… during the race keeping Sebastian Vettel in second place:
F1 GP - Shanghai 2017 - Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel by Dirk Steffen, on Flickr

F1 GP - Shanghai 2017 - Lewis Hamilton by Dirk Steffen, on Flickr

Sebastian Vettel pushed his Ferrari on P2 during a dry qualifying:
F1 GP - Shanghai 2017 - Sebastian Vettel by Dirk Steffen, on Flickr

Max Verstappen did an amazing run onto the podium on Sunday, here keeping Dani Ricciardo behind:
F1 GP - Shanghai 2017 - Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo by Dirk Steffen, on Flickr

I am so sad about Fernando Alonso's start into his '17 season - a DNF on Sunday sadly :-(
F1 GP - Shanghai 2017 - Fernando Alonso by Dirk Steffen, on Flickr

Sergio Perez in the Force India giving us some proper suspension load with a softer setup on Saturday (FP3), probably preparing a setup for a rainy Sunday race here:
F1 GP - Shanghai 2017 - Sergio Perez by Dirk Steffen, on Flickr

Too bad we had FP1 cut prematurely and cancelled FP2, so this year I just couldn't get to all my favorite spots around the track :-(
… next year then fellas! Now back to work …

 

[Peter Hooper]

Thoroughly enjoyed that race. Edge of the seat stuff which was missing in Melbourne. Great drive from Hamilton who was always in control but Vettell pushed as hard as he could and made those two great overtaking manoeuvres on Raikonnen and Ricciardo. Disappointing from both the Merc and Ferrari number two drivers. Bottas rookie mistake cost him any chance of a podium but his pace later in the race was up there with the top two and I'm confident he will produce the results the team need. Raikonnen just wasn't able to get the pace out of the car that Vettell did. He needs to get on top of that really quickly or Vettell will be off in the distance and Raikonnen will be playing second fiddle which is not what he will want in what could be his final season with them.

Tremendous performance once again from Saintz to get that Torro Rosso into 7th place and more good points for the team. They'll need as many as they can get at this early stage of the season because their rivals (Force India, Haas and Lotus) will all out develop them over the course of the season. 9th and 10th doesn't look good on paper for Force India but that was actually better than the car seemed capable of before the race so it was a good return. Williams were massively disappointing though and clearly have not solved their wet weather weaknesses with this new car. They better hope it's a dry season or else reclaiming that 4th spot is not going to be easy.

Magnusson did well to get 8th for Haas to get their season points tally under way but Renault will be bitterly disappointed to come away empty handed after those double penalties put paid to any chance of Hulkenburg staying in the frame for their first points of the season. Such a shame that Alonso was let down by the car again.. just getting that car anywhere near the top ten was a brilliant performance and deserved better than another retirement. Fingers crossed that Bahrain brings him something more... but I doubt it. As for Sauber well.. what can we say.. Giovinacci's great performance in Melbourne certainly a distant memory after those two mistakes here and Ericsson coming home the last of the finishers was not too much to shout about.

Roll on Bahrain... what chance of some more changeable weather lol we should be so lucky....