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Fernando Alonso‘s win at the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday announced the Ferrari driver as a strong contender for the Formula One championship after a comfortable victory.
Alonso took the lead for good with 13 laps to go and won by 10 seconds ahead of Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen. Pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes finished third, just two tenths of a second ahead the hard-finishing Sebastian Vettel.
After retiring early last time out in Malaysia three weeks ago, the Ferrari star drove a flawless race to win the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit. It was Alonso’s 31st victory of his career, drawing him level with Nigel Mansell on the sport’s all-time win list, leaving only Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna ahead of him.
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Hamilton led away from pole while Raikkonen dropped back to fourth place behind the two Ferraris. Hamilton couldn’t break the DRS gap and on lap five, both Ferraris found a way past; Alonso using DRS over the finish line and Massa following him through into turn one.
The first seven drivers on the grid had used the highly-degradable soft Pirelli rubber in Q3, giving them an early advantage in the race, but knowing they would be forced into pitting early. As for the six drivers behind (Button, Vettel, Hulkenberg, Di Resta, Sutil, along with McLaren’s Sergio Perez), they all started on the medium compound.
The leaders quickly ditched their fragile soft-compound Pirelli tyres – Hamilton and Rosberg on lap 5, Alonso and Raikkonen on lap 6, and Massa on lap 7.
And as the pit stops were playing out, there was a collision at Turn 14 as Esteban Gutierrez ran in to the back of Adrian Sutil, taking both out of the race. A large list of drivers – Vettel, Webber, Raikkonen, Button, Romain Grosjean, Valtteri Bottas and Max Chilton – were all under investigation for using DRS under the resulting yellow flags*, with the FIA still unable to disable it from race control.
At this point of the race, Vettel was starting to make his way up through the field from P9. Likewise, Webber (who started the race from the pits after a disastrous qualifying session) was also making his way up from the back of the grid. Though his run to the front was curtailed on lap 16 when Jean-Eric Vergne, of Toro Rosso, cut across him. Webber suffered damage to the front of his car and was called into the pits. But shortly afterwards the call, the Australian inexplicably lost a right-rear tyre. Several cars had to swerve as the tyre rolled across the track.
A lap later, Räikkönen also had contact at Turn 6, getting forced onto the kerbs and grass under braking by Sergio Perez and running into the back of the McLaren. Both drivers continued as Räikkönen finished the race with a damaged front wing and hole in the nose of his Lotus.
As the race unfolded, and as has become the way so far this season, it all became about making the tyres last, pitting at the right time and knowing when to attack and when to try and ease a little. During the middle session of the race, much seemed to calm down as the lead jumped from driver to driver and with each pit, fans started to take heed to which driver had used (or not used) both tyre compounds.
Alonso eventually surrendered his lead — nearly 20 seconds by then — to Vettel when he went in for a change of tyres. But the Spaniard took it back again on lap 43 of 56, darting inside the Red Bull. Alonso was in full flow now, clocking the fastest lap time of the race, as Vettel, Raikkonen and Hamilton scrapped it out for the other two podium places.
But just as many fans thought it was over, Vettel needed to pit again. On lap 52, he did so, rejoining the action in fourth, as he attempted to chase down a podium place.
Behind Vettel, Button finished a creditable fifth, given the still ongoing limitations of his McLaren. Button was followed by Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, Daniel Ricciardo in his Toro Rosso, Di Resta, Lotus’s Romain Grosjean and Hulkenberg in 10th, with Marsussia’s Max Chilton 17th.
The provisional result leaves Vettel leading the championship by just three points from Raikkonen, nine points from Alonso and twelve from Hamilton.
A few titbits of post race information:
*The stewards investigated several drivers after the race for possible use of DRS under yellow flags – notably Vettel, Webber, Raikkonen, Bottas, Ricciardo and Chilton – but decided not to issue any penalties.
With the loss of his rear tyre on track, Webber and Red Bull were fined 5000 Euros.
Webber will be penalized for causing the collision, with stewards relegating him three grid places at next weekend’s Bahrain GP. Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez also received a five-place grid penalty for crashing into the back of Adrian Sutil (to be taken in Bahrain).
