Hamilton runs away from Bottas & field to dominate Chinese GP, Mercedes finish 1-2; Intrigue builds at Ferrari as team orders boost Vettel to P3 at Leclerc’s expense

The Chinese Grand Prix was essentially won on the getaway the moment the lights went out to start the race at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday. Lewis Hamilton got the better escape from the line and bested his pole-sitting Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas to take a lead he would never really relinquish. After Bottas’ inspiring pole run in Saturday qualifying it had to be deflating for the Finn to once again find himself looking at Hamilton’s war wing for nearly the entirety of the race, as so often happened last season en route to Hamilton’s fifth World Championship. After Hamilton’s somewhat lucky win in Bahrain two weeks ago where he and Mercedes were the beneficiaries of Ferrari’s fumbles, Hamilton was simply supreme in Shanghai this contest and no other driver in the field could put him under duress from Lap 1 onward. It was Hamilton stamping his authority back on team Mercedes and the series itself after Bottas had won in Round 1 in Melbourne. It also put the Englishman solidly into the lead of the Drivers’ points for the first time this young season. And when Bottas brought his Silver Arrow home safely in P2 6.5 seconds in arrears of Hamilton he was also a good 7 seconds ahead of the P3 Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, insuring the third consecutive Mercedes 1-2 finish in three contests so far and maximum points for this era’s dominant team in the 1000th Formula 1 race. It was also Hamilton’s 75th career victory, the most by any current F1 driver and second most in the sport’s history behind only the great Michael Schumacher.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

For Ferrari the days discontents ran deeper than their cars clear inferiority to the Mercedes and Vettel’s eventual third place and Charles Leclerc’s P5 finish. The Scuderia’s brain trust made an early and consequential call from the pit wall on Lap 11 for their young phenom Leclerc to the let the veteran Vettel through. While that is never an order for any driver to swallow and Leclerc was understandably miffed it also had the net negative of not paying off. Vettel was not really that much quicker than Leclerc if at all, struggled to get the Medium Pirellis that the all the top five started on to work and never really seemed a threat to P2 Bottas up ahead. The team then tried to make a different play by splitting their strategy, calling Vettel in first on Lap 19 for the Hard compound and then telling Leclerc to stay out to Lap 31 to theoretically take advantage of fresher tires at the end with much younger Hards..

But the very abrasive Shanghai Circuit had other ideas for any team seeking to make the race a one-stopper. First Red Bull pulled the trigger with their ace Max Verstappen on Lap 35, calling the Dutchman in for the second time and getting him off the Hard tires and back on to the Mediums. Vettel responded to the the threatening potential undercut by pitting immediately after for the same tire changes and then Mercedes, on a risky but ultimately flawlessly executed bit of pit ballet, double stacked their men by calling them both into the pits and servicing Hamilton and Bottas immediately back-to-back with no real loss of time to either driver. By the end of Lap 42 it was clear that Leclerc was also not going to make a one-stopper work and he once again let Vettel by and promptly dove to the pit for his own second stop. Verstappen’s gap was too large at this point and Leclerc reemerged behind the Red Bull in P5 where his second Prancing Horse would ultimately finish. It was a frustrating result for the young Monegasque who got his first taste of Ferrari palace intrigue. It should be very interesting to see how Leclerc reacts the next time he receives team orders in a race.

While Verstappen finished P4 after making the most of the Ferrari strategy indecision, his Red Bull teammate put in a decent performance to come home P6. While he was never really a threat to his teammate it was still a positive performance by the Gasly who is already being second-guessed as Red Bull number two just three races into the season due to lackluster pace and performance. Gasly even managed to snatch the point-scoring fast lap of the race when the team switched him onto Softs for the final two laps, taking that potentially valuable honor away from Vettel. The former Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo also got a much needed good result for himself and the factory Renault team with a somewhat solitary but solid P7 finish.  But once again Renault reliability appears to be an issue, as teammate Nico Hulkenberg had another mechanical issue and was forced to retire his car on Lap 17.

Further back in the Top 10, Racing Point’s Sergio Perez had a really good run. The Mexican pilot made up four places on the start, staying out of harm’s way when Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat caused a big shunt with the two McLaren’s just behind him and then fighting off Alfa Romeo’s savvy veteran Kimi Raikkonen for a P8 finish. Raikkonen also drove a superb race and made multiple passes to come home a valuable P9. And Toro Rosso’s rookie Alexander Albon and the team recovered from a big crash in Free Practice to place P10. After yeoman’s work by the mechanics to swap and rebuild the chassis, Albon had to start from the pits on Sunday but nevertheless fought his way up the last points paying position ahead of the much more experienced Haas of Romain Grosjean, who ran out of laps to run down the impressive young Thai pilot. That made it two races in a row for Albon with points scoring finishes, a nice run for the youngter to start his F1 career.

Top 10 finishers of the Chinese GP:

Complete race results via via Formula1.com.

The next F1 tilt is in two weeks time from the always intriguing Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan. It’s ultra tight and tempers tend to flare so it should lead to another good contest. Hope to see you then to find out if Mercedes can keep up their winning ways and Ferrari can get their house in order!