Hamilton’s Hat-trick in China

Lewis Hamilton claimed his 3rd win from 4 races giving him his first Hat-trick of his F1 career. The Chinese Grand Prix again threw up thrills and spills but Lewis Hamilton dominated from start to finish closing the gap in the World Championship to his team-mate Nico Rosberg.

After an exciting Bahrain Grand Prix hopes were high of a similar battle between the two Mercedes team mates in Shanghai, but a wet qualifying session saw Hamilton secure a stunning pole position ahead of an impressive Ricciardo in the Red Bull, whilst Rosberg span on his final lap, resulting in a 4th place grid position, behind the World Champion Sebastian Vettel.

Massa was in his best qualifying position in 6th, behind Alonso , whilst Grosjean was the sole Lotus in the top ten. Magnussen started 15th, whilst Maldonado started dead last after problems in qualifying.
After the rain of Saturday, Sunday saw a warm race day, where tyre wear was likely to have an impact on the teams strategy.

The Race

As the lights went out Hamilton made the perfect start capitalising on the squabbling behind to stretch out an immediate advantage. Alonso also making an excellent start & found himself battling with the Red Bulls for 2nd and 3rd even with a huge side collision with the Williams of Massa. The start proved eventful for Nico Rosberg who having started in 4th clashed with Valterri Bottas into turn 1 resulting in him dropping down to 7th at the end of lap 1.

Battles at the back of the pack started to escalate as the Mclarens and Lotus of Maldonado started to make their way through the field.

By lap 6 we saw the end of Adrien Sutil’s race as a Sauber power unit issue cut his race short, his third DNF in 3 races.

Rosberg began to make his way through the field claiming Hulkenberg and Massa to move to 5th. Alonso was now all over the back of Vettel for 2nd with Hamilton extending his lead sector by sector.

Lap 10 signaled the start of the pit stops for cars at the business end. Massa was first and not without problems. It seems the earlier incident may have led to issues replacing the rear left tyre. Massa clearly frustrated with the 1 minute stop was now dead last in the race.

Next up were Alonso and Hulkenburg with perfect stops rejoining the race mid pack. Vettel was the next man in with his team-mate Ricciardo told to continue a couple more laps. With the pack all beginning to pit Vettel came out in 4th position behind Alonso.

Hamilton finally pitted from the lead and rejoined 4 seconds ahead of Alonso in second. Ricciardo also called in for a fresh set of mediums.

Rosberg was told that he had no telemetry to the team and therefore he would have to feedback to the team throughout the race on how the car was feeling and most importantly the fuel levels.

By lap 17 Kimi Raikkonen climbed into the top 10 with a pass on the struggling Mclaren of Magnussen. Hamilton again started to build a lead out front, extending it to 5.9 seconds over Alonso.

Lap 22 and Vettel was now coming under a lot of pressure. He lost a place to Rosberg after a fight through a couple of corners but the speed of the Mercedes proved too much for the Red Bull. Ricciardo was now closing in on Vettel and 2 laps later Vettel was under huge pressure from his young team mate. His team came on the radio and instructed Vettel to let his team-mate through. Vettel initially refused asking what tyre choice Ricciardo was on, to be told “soft, but stopped two laps later than you”. Vettel obviously ticked off by the request from his team replied with “tough luck”. After a battle for a couple of corners, Ricciardo made his way through in the faster car.

Romain Grosjean seemingly running a race all of his own, in an improved Lotus had 4th gear troubles and was asked to use it sparingly or risk retirement. A matter of laps later it was the end of Grosjean's race, a shame after his qualifying and race performance.

Rosberg was now in 3rd and closing quickly on Alonso and passed the Ferrari during the latters pit stop. He was however over 18 seconds behind his team-mate and race leader Lewis Hamilton. Rosberg then pitted but came out behind Alonso but behind by more than 5 seconds.

Within a matter of laps Rosberg closed the gap down to less than 2.5 seconds. It wasn't long before Rosberg took the place and began to pull away in 2nd place. He was now over 15 seconds behind Hamilton out front with under ten laps remaining.

With the places for points seemingly settled Ricciardo was informed that he could catch Alonso by the end of the race. Ricciardo had pulled out a 17 second gap to his team mate behind him proving that Vettel won't have it all his own way this year at Red Bull.

Lower down the order Kvyat seemed to have kept the Mclaren of Button out of the points with another excellent drive from the rookie in his Toro Rosso. A bad day for the McLaren team though, with both cars out of the points, and both cars lapped by the leader.

After his terrible pit stop Massa did well to recover but not well enough to edge into the points. Finishing his race a lowly 15th.

Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag on a perfect weekend for him and the Mercedes team once again. Can they be caught? On this pace seemingly not.

2014 Chinese GP Results

Note – Result declared at end of Lap 54/56, in accordance with Article 43.2 of sporting regulations (chequered flag was shown to leader at end of Lap 55).

1) Lewis Hamilton
2) Nico Rosberg
3) Fernando Alonso
4) Daniel Ricciardo
5) Sebastian Vettel
6) Nico Hulkenberg
7) Valtteri Bottas
8) Kimi Raikkonen
9) Sergio Perez
10) Daniil Kvyat
11) Jenson Button
12) Jean-Eric Vergne
13) Kevin Magnussen
14) Pastor Maldonado
15) Felipe Massa
16) Esteban Gutierrez
17) Kamui Kobayashi
18) Jules Bianchi
19) Max Chilton
20) Marcus Ericsson

DNF : Romain Grosjean, Adrian Sutil

2014 Championship Standings (Top 10)

1) Rosberg – 79
2) Hamilton – 75
3) Alonso – 41
4) Hulkenburg – 36
5) Vettel – 33
6) Ricciardo – 24
7) Bottas – 24
8) Button – 23
9) Magnussen – 20
10) Perez – 18

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