Chinese GP Review: Alonso takes first win of the season

Fernando Alonso won the Chinese Grand Prix 2013 ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton. In a race again dominated by tyre wear and strategies, the Spaniard won the GP quite comfortably, with a 10 seconds gap over his rivals. Having out-qualified Massa after 4 races, Alonso put up a solid performance to claim the 31st victory of his Formula One career.

Meanwhile, qualifying had sprung out quite a few surprises, with Hamilton on P1. All the teams decided to do only one timed lap in Q3, and Vettel abandoned his lap. Earlier that day, Mark Webber finished 14th, but ran out of fuel and didn’t have enough for a fuel sample. As a result, he was excluded and demoted to the back of the grid. The team decided to start from the pit lane so that they could make changes to the car. Riccardo put a flying lap to start on the 4th row alongside Button. Kimi qualified 2nd, ahead of Alonso, while Rosberg was 4th fastest, showing how capable the Mercedes was.

As the countdown for the race begun, all the speculation was about tyre strategies. All the drivers were expected to be on options which were pretty short-lived, and then would be up onto the primes for the majority of the race. Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery predicted that most would go for three stops during the race; however he added “from the data” that a couple of cars could do a two-stop. Jenson Button, who started at eighth, was crucially the first man to start on the more durable medium tyres. Interestingly, Mark Webber had gone for a new set of soft tyres.

Lap 1-20

It was show time and Lewis Hamilton got off to a brilliant start from pole position, and so did the Ferraris, as both Alonso and Massa passed the slow-starting Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen. Daniel Ricciardo held his position in the Toro Rosso in seventh, with Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel close behind. Fernando piled up the pressure and was hustling the Mercedes of Hamilton. Mark Webber pitted straight away at the end of the first lap. The Australian clearly wanted to get rid of the soft tyres early on, as all drivers had to use both types of tyres during the race. Kimi Raikkonen recovered from his slow start, keeping in touch with the Ferrari of Felipe Massa in front. Lap 3 saw Alonso trying to overtake Hamilton, while Massa also had a look at his teammate. Alonso finally succeeded in overtaking Hamilton as he used his DRS to drive past down the straight. Massa had a stab at Lewis too, making it a Ferrari 1-2. The Mercedes was clearly struggling with its tyres.

Lap 41-56

Race leader Alonso peeled into his pit box on lap 41 and rejoined just behind Vettel. That meant that Vettel led the Grand Prix, but still had to stop again. It looked like Fernando Alonso has got this race in the bag as he passed Vettel with ease at Turn One to take the lead on lap 43. Alonso continued to push as he set the fastest lap of the race on the 47th lap. While Vettel was expected to stop in next 3 laps, Button went into the pits in his McLaren for a set of soft tyres on the 50th. He rejoined in seventh, behind Massa but ahead of Ricciardo. Vettel pitted with 4 laps to go, and was now on the soft compound tyres.

For the final few laps, Hamilton tried putting pressure on Kimi in second place, but also had other worries, as Vettel came in charging, closing a whopping 14 second gap on Hamilton in just 3 laps. Traffic on the track meant that the drivers couldn’t do much and finished in the same places, eventually. As the Spaniard crossed the finished line, he had his championship hopes back in place. Raikkonen was second, followed closely by Hamilton and Vettel. Button, Massa, Ricciardo, Di Resta, Grosjean and Hulkenberg completed the top ten.