Hamilton finally breaks the Vettel deadlock!!

Hamilton celebrates after winning the Chinese GP

Lewis Hamilton finally breaks the Vettel deadlock with a tremendous victory at the Chinese grand prix this weekend. Starting from a third position on the grid Hamilton drove a fantastic race with a lot of passes and overtaking when everything seemed to go right for him after the start of the race. But the things were not as favorable as they were just before the start when there were questions even about the British starting the race when the McLaren car was just refusing to start off with just 6 minutes left for the teams to put the cars on the grid. But the driver and the technical staff kept their heads cool and the technicians finally corrected the problem and put the car out of the pit lane with not more than a minute in hand.

As far as Sebastian Vettel was concerned, looking at his performance in the qualifying sessions where he again took his third consecutive pole on Saturday, people were assuming that like the Australia and the Malaysian Grand Prix Vettel would take number one spot on the podium again for a third consecutive time. But the German was unable to equal the feat of his fellow compatriot, Michael Schumacher of winning three consecutive opening races of a season. even though the red bull RB7 might be the fastest car on the circuit but there are some problems that the Red Bull have not been able to tackle well. The major problem is the reintroduced KERS which seems never to be working for them. But looking at it the other way round from the perspective of other teams, may be this is making the competition more even and the races a lot more interesting which otherwise would surely have been a one man show.

Vettel did not have the best of the starts this grand prix when he lost a couple of positions ton both the McLaren drivers right at the opening of the race. He tried to squeeze the passing Hamilton’s car on the first corner trying to block the McLaren driver but was unsuccessful in his attempt. Vettel was a little late on using the KERS which allowed button to go past him easily but after a lot of catching up, Vettel was again in the lead after the first pit stop. At the end the two pit stop strategy did not seem to go well for the german as he was struggling to find grip on the track and hence was unable to push the car. Also the KERS was not functioning properly and there were some problems in communication with the team over the radio which allowed Lewis to close the gap between and finally overtook Vettel in the 52^nd lap of the race. Mclaren team went for the three pit stop strategy and with the fresh set of tyres Hamilton pushed hard for the top spot. He even could have involved in a collision with his own teammate Jenson Button, if the latter had not allowed him to pass and it was just like the great Ayrton Senna driving once again. It was a real pleasure see him driving like he did; the do or die kind of an attitude, either you win or you just lose , like there is no second position ,which is really hard to find these days when the drivers are more dependent on the machinery rather than the skills.

But not to forget the remarkable performance from the other red bull driver Mark Webber. Webber had a horrendous qualifying session when he was at the 18^th position in the first qualifying session and hence was unable to qualify for the Q2. Mark even went off the track at the first corner at the start and it felt as if the things weren’t getting any better for the Australian. But he kept his patience and even with a few problems with his KERS, was soon catching upon the other drivers fast. In an interview Mark said, “The guys did a good job in the pit stops; the first one was not the best, but after that they did a very, very good job. I got a bit lucky today – we didn’t have so much yesterday, but hey, look, I’ll take as much as I can get. I still had to do a little bit of driving today so it wasn’t too bad, so thanks to the guys”.

There was an eerie moment during the race when Jenson Button unknowingly went into the Red Bull pit stop but soon realized his mistake and went to the McLaren pit stop then. This cost him and Sebastian Vettel a few seconds who was just behind the Mclaren driver waiting for him to get his car out of Red Bull pit stop. It could have been a very interesting situation, if you hypothetically suppose, if Jenson Button would have got the tires which were for Vettel and then Vettel would have gone in the McLaren pit to have the tires that should have been on Button’s car. We would have loved to see that happen.