Things this time started to go a little south before lights went out with fuel leakage on Hamilton grumpy-face's car as it was fired up to join the grid. But in a flurry of mopping of fuel and unscrewing of bodywork the Mclaren team managed to get the car out of the garage with 36s seconds to spare. Now if RML handn't managed to repair Plato's rolled Chevrolet today at Donnington then McLaren would have pulled of the greatest mechanical achievement of the weekend - perhaps Plato destroyed his car on purpose just so that his team could out-do the F1 crew. But I digress, the finishing touches to the bodywork were applied to Hamilton grumpy-face's car as it sat on the grid running to the limit of all the available deadlines.
Once everyone had finally lined up in their correct places on the starting line, all panels re-attached and sorted out it was time to get the Chinese GP underway. And for the vast majority of the grid things did get underway roughly anyway - Sebastien Vettel took the start at a more leisurely pace. This allowed Jenson Button clean through into the lead, with an open road out in front of him. Hamilton grumpy-face was also to take advantage of the slowed start of the Red Bull and joined his teammate in the front.
Rosberg came close to making it a silver trio at the head of the field, but ran out of space on the exit of three and four (because they are the official turn numbers). In the second Red Bull way back in the alternate reality that is the bottom end of the grid, Webber starting on the harder of the available compounds was making very little progress. Negotiating up to 15th from 18th but losing positions to Perez and then running off in the early laps knocked him back down to the end of the established runners.
Everything was running simply for the first few laps until people started making pit-stops and playing the strategic games. The top three were making a gap ahead of Rosberg and the Ferraris with fast starting Force Indias behind them. Out of the mid-field the Saubers managed to invert their positions with one-stop Perez falling behind Kobayashi and dealing with Webber.
Unusually the early running was contact free, no front wings were lost which was good for Heidfeld who more than likey destroyed all of the replacements in Friday practice and with the Renault not being supernatural off the line this weekend they could have done with all the help possible. It was at this point that everything made sense all the cars were circulating as best they could...Then....
Some strategy happened
Among the first set of people to open the pit lane account were the rather off pace Webber on the hard tyres onto softer tyres and Rosberg from soft to soft tyres. The change gave both drivers instant pace improvements and they set faster times which would bring them into play later. Another of the early stoppers was Torro Rosso's Alguersuari, things didn't go quite to plan here because I'm sure the idea is to attach four wheels to a car - and although STR did score 75% on that task that wasn't quite enough. The remaining 25% of the task soon parted company and bounced in a bid for freedom away on the exit of turn four.
Some more pit-stops followed this time for Button and Vettel - but things weren't too smooth here either, you see Button had a bit of an identity crisis and decided that being a McLaren driver wasn't for him and that the Red-Bull mechanics were far more entertaining. He decided to pull up to their team pit arrangement instead of going home. Post race one of the Red Bull mechanics claimed that it was an attempt on Jenson's behalf to cost Vettel time, but it sort of backfired because he lost out to Vettel in that pit lane exchange.
With the main stops taken care of the field settled down with one slight change everyone had been jumped on strategy by Nico Rosberg whose fast laps on newer tyres moved him in front of all the other cars and out into the lead. A similar process was unfolding for Mark Webber who was making up places and closing in on the points. Other movements up and down the grid saw Force India dropping back being replaced by Kobayashi and a massively improving Michael Schumacher who once again ended up in combat - of which the faster Mercedes had the edge.
This is where things start to get a little more complex as drivers having made second stops start re-emerging at all sorts of places Alonso ended up near Michael, Vettel with Force Indias and Massa with the McLarens. With all these cars out of position passing other drivers on other strategies and differing stages of tyre management. This of course brought about different interesting battles through the field with Hamilton passing all manner of cars and Webber sneakily making more progress on the newer tyres saved from qualifying.
Schumacher battle was an interesting insight into differing drivers in Ferrari's history coming together but also what was interesting was that during the battle Alonso's DRS activated outside of the prescribed zone - were Ferrari up to something (probably) or was it a technical issue (also probable but far less fun). Once evading the Mercedes - Alonso managed something incredible - something he'd had so much trouble with last year... He passed Petrov!
Elsewhere on the grid one-stop Perez was starting to be rather forceful - first up knocking Heidfeld wide on the entry to turn three opening the door to take the position. The stewards placed him under investigation for the challenge - but one-stop Perez decided to make their decision for them by performing a mad challenge on Adrian Sutil in turn two which earned him the penalty which was inevitable after one of the incidents. Damaging the Force India in the process.
And then some more strategy happened
Once the stops had finally settled we ended up with Vettel out front with Button and Hamilton who was on the freshest tyres. Grumpy face chased down his team-mate after dealing with the two stopping Massa, he caught the fellow silver car (or blue depending on Jenson's real affiliation) on the exit of the final corner and pressed all the KERS power he had left and applied it immediately after it recharged. Positioning the car on the inside of the first corner scooting just down the inside of the car from the other side of the garage.
The next car in line was the race leader for the resurgent McLaren. But that wasn't the only vehicle on a mammoth charge - a certain Mr Webber was in the process of completing the mother, father and estranged uncle of all comebacks, pushing the Red Bull from it's lowly placing right up into the points... and was far from done there. Powering past both Ferraris and Rosberg Webber now pulled up behind Button. Given his superior tyre compound and condition the pass was inevitable and un-stoppable.
Having left everyone else behind as they got held up by the slow Ferrari on it's older tyres, Hamilton grumpy-face caught up to Vettel. The leader was on the same sort of older tyres that were crippling Massa's pace, and to make matters worse his KERS was also in it's default condition of being broken. This made things easier for Lewis as Vettel had nothing to challenge the attacking McLaren with, and within laps conceded the lead. The situation was reversed for 3rd where the Red Bull was the aggressor with Webber managing to take a podium place from Button finishing what was an epic drive.
Just outside the points on the final lap Heidfeld and Di Resta decided to share the same piece of race track and succeeded in knocking parts off each other into the T14 hairpin - but their tussle was literally pointless as the final place was held by Kobayashi in 10th and Petrov in 9th. As this was the first time the top 8 places were filled by all drivers from the top four teams.
Grumpy-face managed to cross the line first from an ailing Vettel who just managed to stay ahead of his charging team-mate with Button 4th and Rosberg in 6th.
The Official Bonus Points Championship points winners.
After a race where there were so many people could be awarded points and some very strong performances it was difficult to assign points to only 8 entities. But I did and here are the winners from the Chinese GP.
10pts - Mark Webber, one of the greatest dry-weather comebacks ever, and only two places worse than Rubens German GP in 2000 but that was wet and and safety car affected.
8pts - Grumpy-face Hamilton - although no longer sporting the grumpy face it was a very strong drive with some good clean overtaking manouvres
6pts - Kovalainen - Although there was a lot going on at the front Heikki in the Lotus managed to finish ahead of a Willams on pure speed which is a marked improvement and a good drive. He was also ahead of one-stop Perez but his race was penalty affected
5pts - Rosberg - A strong weekend, showing what the car was capable off, perhaps lost some time in the strategy but very few people were stopping Webber so that position was not dependable so effectively finished where he started.
4pts - Schumacher - Finally getting the full pace out of the car and did a good job racing with other cars including Alonso and Kobayashi
3pts - McLaren - For doing the second best mechanical job of the weekend - it was the first until RML this afternoon eclipsed that and were given moral bonus points for their efforts.
2pts - Pirelli - For unleashing madness... that is all
1pt - Alonso - For finally passing Petrov
The penalty championship
Only two penalties were incurred this weekend both in the form of a drive through penalty - one for Perez because of his... innovative overtaking attempts. And one for Liuzzi for a jump start, not that jumping in the start in a HRT would be any help to them but never mind.
Dodgy dealings
While this championship still exists - there is a thought of merging it with the main championship in the form of negative scoring - the points for this race were only going to be assigned to one-stop Perez but the stewards took care of him. Then they were going to go to Button for what may have been a devious tactic to delay Red Bull by visiting their garage, but I reckon he just made an error.
But the most suspicious incident goes to Alonso with his anomalous rear wing activating outside the zone which is....odd to say the least. So until a better explanation surfaces he's going in the table.
Off to Turkey
Now there is a long break before everyone reaches Europe and I don't have to wake up at unnatural hours of the morning. There will likely be much development in the three weeks off so when wheels hit the track in Istanbul the form book will turned inside out and completely re-written so who knows what we are expecting so we shall have to wait in anticipation for some more tyre strategy madness.
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