Here we are, towards the end of a rather long day indeed, as the race build up was almost 12hrs ago now, many laps later - some frantic, some less so - and an distinctly variable rehearsal period; where it turns out the iconograph device needs a little reinforcing on the its chassis. Another race has now been completed, and it turned out to be a race of two very distinct personalities, starting off being very repressed and cautious before bubbling to a point and cascading into torrents of activity.
There were reflections to our last visit to the Shanghai, as we saw only a single retirement for a wheel related drama and a winner that seems out of place with the general run of form of the season. The event could have been a little more consistent and it was fraught with unconventional and seemingly odd performances, finally turning out with the German bloke out front, but not the one we were once used to in previous years.
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| The early train: image credit to F1Fanatic.co.uk |
The Race
A second early start was in prospect and this time the inhospitable hours were voluntary whereas the previous one caught my sleep pattern completely off guard - although sleep was also rather misplaced as the process was also broken at the most awkward of times. However no lack sleep cannot be cured by a step outside into the bracing frosty cold morning air, and loud symphonic metal sounds so grand in the clarity of that time of the morning and the pre-race bagels more than covered the missed breakfast that was bypassed in order to scuttle out into the wild world of northern England.
The image of the track was just as murky as it had been all through qualifying and all through all the other times the series has paid a visit to Shanghai - the owner of it's own personal permanent cloud which posed no threat of rain. Circuit temperatures will still rather low which would play to the strengths of the Mercedes by reducing thermal degradation of the tyres on their car, preferring to operate in lower temperatures. Sadly there was no cross channel clash during the grid-walk as Eddie and DC managed not to collide with Brundle doing his traditional job now for those evil folk over at SKY.
Supplied with a top up bagel, the cars were now forming on the grid, with the two silver cars lining the front peering down the track towards the misty cloud which the daemons that are turns 1-4 were lurking, awaiting the field. Well most of the field as Jean-Eric Vergne was starting for the pitlane after making out of parc ferme changes to the car to make up for the lack of qualifying pace the car had - but the rest of the cars were in place. Unlike my cream cheese which was making a bid for freedom, before being suitably caught and apprehended.
Off the start Rosberg launched off into the distance with what seemed to be the ideal start, ignoring the disadvantage of starting on the dirty unused side of the grid, and leaving the field trailing in his was behind - and that was pretty much the last we would see of him all race. Contrasting fortunes for Kobayashi and Vettel however who lost ground at the start, while the Ferraris were converted into target practice as Grosjean bumped Alonso and Senna chipped his front wing on Massa's car.
For the opening few laps an oddly small amount of nothing took place, everyone was almost too well behaved - Nico was turning into an ever smaller silver speck on the horizon and Oh Sch..umacher seemed to be holding back the growing queue of cars behind. Because Jenson happens to be British he duly formed an orderly queue behind the German and was joined by everyone else down to Vettel in 14th all circulating in formation under the control of the Mercedes pair. Running up to the first of the pit stops, initiated by Webber opting to get out of the Sch...umacher queue in search of some clear space. However when the second German moved in to replace his tyres there was a little problem. Normally cars prefer to work with four of the round things but Michael only left the garage with three attached properly and one minus a nut. A flaw in the rear wheel process tripped the automated light system so therefore the car was released before the stop was completed and Oh Sch...umacher had to pull the car over.
At this point we pretty much had an interval where, the drivers went away had a flurry of pitstops ended up different positions depending on how the traffic fell for the cars as they rejoined the circuit. Both One-Stop Perez and Massa were running longer on their opening stints and were out of position as the different strategies were coming to fruition, strategies which were becoming the far greatest influence on the outcome of the event as the concept of racing seemed to have shutdown. The DRS system was being mainly rather ineffective compared to the amount of passing we saw using the system this time last year. Cars opting to queue once more behind each other sharing the positions - which at one point saw One-Stop Perez cycled to the lead while Rosberg pitted but that position quickly returned to normal with the Mercedes in it's own little world out in the lead. To illustrate how civil this part of the race was when Hamilton found himself behind Massa - he didn't hit him, not even a little punt.
As we saw last season the only driver to challenge a dominant German is the reigning bonus points champion Jenson Button who began hacking away at the lead Rosberg had attained. The 22 second gap was being shredded at more than a second per lap, and Jenson's race engineer was convinced that the victory was in reach. While the Red Bulls were trapped behind both Williams towards the bottom end of the top ten, when Webber had a rather odd incident, on the exit of turn 13, as the car drifted a little wide he clipped a curb rejoining and pulled a Webber wheelie. Luckily the car didn't get too much height for the air to catch the front of the car and blow it over, something Mark has experienced with the Mercedes CLK GTR Le mans car which had a habit of taking off and landing upside down in 1998.
Right at the front Rosberg was taking note of Buttons strong pace and the threat to the race victory took to the pits to switch to a new set of tyres to counter the attacking McLaren - Jenson had to respond to the Mercedes to prevent Nico benefiting from the newer rubber. But once again the pit lane put an end to another challenge as the rear tyre took an age to put on, tripling the length of the stop dropping the McLaren further down the field and too far from the back of the Mercedes. Rosberg was now safe and free from any challenge and would never be encountered again.
A sense of deja vu was occurring as a large queue was starting to build, Massa running long again on his second set of tyres had shuffled up to second and everyone else was in a line behind him, pursued closest by the Lotus of Raikkonen, Vettel and Grosjean. The line of cars covered the entire of the points positions and beyond, all running line astern which negated the function of the DRS as almost all cars in the train had it's usage. And I have a minor theory here, one stemming from virtually no knowledge of aerodynamics, that in long queues of cars they start to act as one entity and run at a similar pace defeating the idea of slipstreaming and the DRS - as we see on NASCAR superspeedway races such as Daytona and Talledega. But however the formation process occurred here we had a competitive line of drivers looking to move to the front, in the NASCAR analogy that tends to result in a large scale 15+ car pileup.
In F1 there is a little more finesse, but not too much, and a train like this needed a catalyst to launch the race into a frenzy, and our catalyst was provided jointly by Hamilton and Alonso who attacked Senna and Maldonado the respective Williams in front of both cars into turn 6. Lewis managed to make the pass stick, while Maldonado defended from Fernando at the apex, Alonso cut back under the Williams on the exit but that lead to the outside into turn seven. This section of track was coated in a massive quantity of cast of rubber marbles, as the Ferrari greeted the marbles it was guided out wide and off the track, before sharply rejoining almost wiping One-Stop Perez out in the process; only escaping a major shunt by inches. An identical sequence of events then took place between Mark Webber and Romain Grosjean where the Lotus tried to hold the position on the outside of turn seven and became the second driver to lose positions by running off the circuit.
Grosjean rejoined right in front of Maldonado who must have been a little surprised to see the Lotus still running considering it has never made it past lap 4 in the first two races. Pastor aimed for the inside of Romain in turn 11 banging wheels all the way through the subsequent turn 12, in an effort to score his second elimination of the Frenchman shedding some of his wing endplate in the process. One-Stop Perez wanted to join the battle making it three wide on the back straight but backed out to avoid contact as Maldonado claimed the position, well temporarily as Romain re-took the place by the final corner. Further forward another titanic battle saw Hamilton temporarily wrestled 5th place from Mark Webber after running two wide through turn three, and at the head of the queue Massa pitted handing train leading duties over to Kimi Raikkonen.
Kimi's lead of the group faded as his tyres hit the analogous cliff and his pace plummeted as did his position - dropping from second to being out of the points in the space of a single lap, moving Vettel up into second and to the head of a reducing train. Now some space was beginning to emerge Button began his charge starting with the Red Bull of Sebastien Vettel - after laps of looking for a way through Jenson found some space on the inside of turn 14 to claim second and try and reignite the battle with Rosberg. Towards the other end of the points there was some more racing as Maldonado, Alonso and Kobayashi tried to enter turn one three wide with the Ferrari in the middle and the Sauber to the outside. Through a combination of diplomacy and self-preservation they managed not to hit each other.
Vettel had gained company once more in the form of another McLaren filling the mirrors down the back straight into the DRS zone. The lower top speed of the Red Bull meant Hamilton was able to get down the inside into the hairpin to take the position and hold it onto the front straight. However Lewis did employ dodgy weaving on the front straight to keep Vettel and Webber behind as Sebastiens tyre condition had cost him position in China for the second season in succession. More flashbacks were resonating through Vettels visor as the second Red Bull of Webber was right on the back of his car in the final laps, however this time round the Australian couldn't be fended off. Sebastien defended in the DRS zone but Webber being the way he is find unconventional methods of passing people and it turns out the outside of the turn 14 hairpin is good enough to claim fourth again. Which meant both him and Hamilton were scoring in the same position that they have done in every other race this season - ah well at least it is consistent, consistent enough to earn Hamilton the championship lead.
Somewhere out front, a long way clear of the action behind there was the lone Mercedes - as Nico Rosberg unimpeded crossed the line for his first race victory ever, and the first for the silver cars since 1955. The McLarens filled the rest of the podium followed by the two Red Bull cars, Grosjean actually finished and claimed 6th in the process. Followed by the Williams cars both scoring points on the eve of Frank Williams 70th birthday, Alonso took 9th and Kamui Kobayashi rounding off the points in 10th position.
The Bonus Points Championship points winners
Here are the winners from the 2012 Chinese GP
25pts - Nico Rosberg - For completely disproving the race pace thought about the car, for dominating the race and claiming his first ever win - fairly complete weekend
18pts - Jenson Button - For being able to challenge Nico before a pit error, and then the recovery afterwards to reclaim second
15pts - Mark Webber - Firstly for the wheelie on the exit of turn 13, but also for the outside pass on his team-mate in turn 14
12pts - Romain Grosjean - For actually finishing but adding points to that finish too
10pts - Williams - For a double points finish in the middle of the points ahead of both Ferraris
8pts - Kamui Kobayashi - For claiming fastest lap, running three wide with Alonso and avoiding a wild defensive move by Perez
6pts - Kimi Raikkonen - For leading the queue on pace before the tyres on the car failed
4pts - Bagels - Need I say more
2pts - Pedro De La Rosa - For only being one lap down in the rather woeful HRT car
1pt - Lewis Hamilton - Well done, you didn't hit Massa this time
The Penalty Points Series
With every one again being civil on track there were no official penalties so here are the penalty points for the the weekend.
- Sebastien Vettel - for the rant that I haven't updated the table for that was included in a post a while back but to remind me to add the point
- Lewis Hamilton - the authorities may have missed it but the weaving after passing Vettel earns him a penalty point
- Ryan Hunter-Reay - yes it isn't F1 but Mr Hunter-Reay binned Takuma Sato on the final lap out of a podium position at Long Beach - I'm not pleased with you
- Sergio-Perez - for the extreme defensive move on Kobayashi - thats the sort of thing that sends cars into the greenery via the air.
Looking to Bahrain
In the preview the blog considered the Bahrain GP to be going ahead, and the FIA confirmed it over the weekend. We've had three races where water has been involved at some point, damp practices in Australia and China, then the monsoon in Sepang - a trend which is very unlikely to continue as the sport ventures out into the desert where there is not any rain planned. Out in the sandy wastes lies another of these Tilke designed tracks - at least this time the layout doesn't have any horrific irritating corners like the last two have. Instead there are a lot of boring corners and an often uninspiring lap.
Luckily the additional corners that were added for the last time the cars went to the island in 2010 have been amputated from the track, because the added sector was an embarrassment to the rest of the lap - it replaced some quick corners with a painful sequence. Reverting back to the layout that was initially run on the track's début.
Should the season actually be going to Bahrain isn't really my decision - it does seem a little dodgy but other countries we visit also have a dodgy social demographic, with inequality and deprivation such as China and India. But the series still pays a visit to those places so in the interest of impartiality it seems only fair to go to Bahrain, although I may need a more secure blogmobile next time out. So until then this is farewell from the blog.
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