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[h=2]Hamilton beats Vettel in wet/dry Chinese GP[/h] Sunday, 09 April 2017



By Chris Medland / Images by LAT

Lewis Hamilton took his 54th career victory and first of the season with a controlled drive in a wet/dry Chinese Grand Prix.


In cool conditions, the race started on a wet track after morning rain but Hamilton led from lights to flag as Ferrari and Red Bull scrapped behind him, while teammate Valtteri Bottas suffered a difficult start and dropped down the field due to a spin behind the Safety Car after a crash for Antonio Gioviniazzi.
Sebastian Vettel lost out during the Safety Car period and dropped to fifth place at the start, allowing Hamilton to pull out a healthy lead. While Australian Grand Prix winner Vettel rose to second as the race progressed, he was too far adrift to challenge Hamilton and the triple world champion came home 6.2 seconds clear to draw level at the top of the drivers' championship.

"Thanks so much to everyone, we've really worked hard for this," Hamilton said on team radio after the checkered flag. "We've got to keep pushing, for sure."
Max Verstappen staged an impressive recovery from 16th on the grid to take third place, holding off teammate Daniel Ricciardo over the line having made rapid progress at the start of the race. Kimi Raikkonen and Bottas were fifth and sixth, with all four cars covered by less than four seconds at the flag.
Carlos Sainz finished seventh and the final car on the lead lap, having gambled on slick tires at the start of the race and dropped to the back, while Kevin Magnussen rose to eighth place to score his first points for Haas ahead of the Force India pair of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon.
With the rain stopping in the hour before the race, the track started to dry and both Mercedes drivers joined Ricciardo in running to the grid on slick tires to test conditions. The track was still too wet, however, with only Sainz gambling on supersofts from 11th place. The Toro Rosso driver dropped to the back of the field before Turn 1 – such was the lack of grip – and then ran off at the first corner, but would soon take advantage of a safety car period.
Hamilton led away with Vettel holding off Bottas at Turn 1, with the Ferrari slow off the line despite being too far to the left of his grid slot – an error for which the stewards decided not to punish the German. With Raikkonen slotting into fourth place ahead of Ricciardo, there was contact further back as Lance Stroll didn't leave enough room for Perez at Turn 10 and the Williams was punted into the gravel, bringing out the Virtual Safety Car at the end of the opening lap.



A number of drivers then opted for slick tires, but Vettel was the only one of the leaders to do so and he dropped to fifth place. On the race restart, Giovinazzi lost control on the very wet patch of track that remained just before the finish line – caused by the overhang on the buildings of the pit straight complex – and hit the pit wall, bringing out the Safety Car on lap 4.
With debris on the pit straight, all cars were required to run through the pit lane and the leaders then stopped for slicks. Mercedes double stacked its cars, but Bottas dropped off the front jack before his front left tire was on and was then held up as the train came through, dropping to fifth place behind the Red Bulls and Raikkonen, but ahead of Vettel.
Sainz spun at Turn 2 behind the Safety Car and hit the wall but was able to continue, before Bottas then spun on the final lap before the Safety Car restart as he was warming his tires, losing control again on the grass as drivers struggled for tire temperature on such a cold day.
The error promoted Vettel to fifth but all the action was ahead of him as Verstappen dived past Raikkonen under braking for Turn 6 on the eighth lap. Setting off after teammate Ricciardo, Verstappen finally got past at the same corner three laps later as the Red Bulls kept Hamilton within two seconds early on.
Ricciardo's pace was slower in the early part and he then held up the Ferraris, with Hamilton starting to ease away at the front as the track dried further. Vettel had to wait until lap 20 to pass his teammate into Turn 6, while he then engaged in a thrilling battle with Ricciardo two laps later and had to outbrake his former teammate around the outside of the same corner. The pair rubbed wheels on exit as Vettel took third place, and at the halfway mark he took over second as Verstappen locked up and ran wide at the Turn 14 hairpin.
Hamilton's lead was over 12 seconds at the time, and Vettel started to close the gap but the race leader had the pace to hold the gap stable at eight seconds to secure victory.
Verstappen pit after his error ahead of Vettel and the leaders all eventually followed suit, leaving him in third place. Raikkonen rose to second as Ferrari kept him out longer – angering the Finn and dropping him to fifth place where he eventually had to hold off the recovering Bottas.
Progress was initially slow for Bottas, but he had the pace to pass Magnussen and Sainz to take sixth in a race where there was plenty of overtaking. Sainz's teammate Daniil Kvyat had to retire from the top 10 on lap 18, while Fernando Alonso was on course for points for McLaren before he damaged his driveshaft defending against his fellow Spaniard and was forced to stop, joining teammate Stoffel Vandoorne in the garage as the Belgian suffered a fuel problem.
Romain Grosjean finished 11th having started on the back row, but pulled out one of the moves of the race when he drove around the outside of the struggling Felipe Massa at Turn 1 late on. Massa ended up 14th behind the two Renaults – who both had spins – and only ahead of Marcus Ericsson.

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[h=2]Verstappen ‘remarkable’ in China - Horner[/h] Sunday, 09 April 2017



By Chris Medland / Images by Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described Max Verstappen's performance in the Chinese Grand Prix as "remarkable" after the Dutchman went from 16th place to the podium.

Verstappen was hit by a power unit issue during qualifying on Saturday that resulted in him dropping out in Q1 and starting from 16th on the grid. With the race getting underway in damp conditions, the 19-year-old made up nine places on the opening lap to run seventh and then climbed through the field to eventually finish third.

Asked for his assessment of Verstappen's performance, Horner replied: "Remarkable.
"His first lap in particular was mighty. I saw one of his passing moves where he went down the outside and passed about three cars and it was obvious that he meant business. He emerged from the first lap in sixth or seventh place. It was hugely impressive.
"I think Max again put in a brilliant performance today. Again in the wet his first lap was fantastic, to come round sixth or seventh after the first lap. He raced hard but fair all afternoon."
And Horner says Verstappen's wet weather performance shows the extent of his natural ability, but stopped short of rating him above former Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel as the team's best in such conditions.
"He appears to have almost a sixth sense in the wet. He doesn't seem intimidated by it in any way and he is prepared to explore all of the boundaries of the circuit available to find where the grip is. There's one move he made on the outside of Turn 6 where he just went straight down the outside of about two or three cars and then cut back. It was very, very impressive.
"I think he's right up there [with the greats in the wet]. It's not a coincidence, now you can see Brazil wasn't a one-off ... I think the way he's grown up, driving go-karts in the wet on slick tires and stuff like that, he's developed a real instinct and feeling.
"I remember Sebastian being fantastic in the wet. His first race that he won here was outstanding. But the great drivers always stand out in wet weather conditions. We saw Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone in 2008... The great drivers always do make a mark for themselves."

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[h=2]Safety car hampered Vettel battle - Hamilton[/h] Sunday, 09 April 2017


By Chris Medland / Image by LAT

Lewis Hamilton believes he would have had a close fight with Sebastian Vettel for victory in the Chinese Grand Prix but for the early Safety Car period.


Vettel pit from second place under a Virtual Safety Car in order to switch to slick tires, but saw any advantage negated by a full Safety Car within a lap of the race restart. With the leaders able to pit for slicks without major penalty, Vettel found himself fifth on the road and had to fight back to second place, by which time Hamilton had built up a 12-second lead.
Despite securing just the third grand slam of his career – pole position, fastest lap, leading every lap and the race win – Hamilton says the race with Ferrari "is so real" even if he wasn't fighting in close proximity with Vettel on track.

"It's been a fantastic weekend and very, very grateful for all the efforts that the team have put in to enable us to be where we are and where I am today," Hamilton said. "It's very overwhelming when you have a weekend like this, because I'm just a link in the chain and, when you really think about it, there's thousands of people involved, hundreds and hundreds of people involved in me being up here and us being where we are.
"So, congratulations to all of them. I hope they're all celebrating back home. I hope they're feeling the spirit, I hope they're feeling the fight... because it's on.
"With the race... qualifying was great, to be able to pull that good lap out, it put me in a great position. Start was fantastic; I'm so happy with the way starts are going to I need to keep that up! And then in the race, really just keeping my composure. Some really tricky conditions out there, particularly on the intermediate. Then, after that, once we'd done the pit stop with the Safety Car, the speed was very low and being very cold, our temperatures in our tires, they're like... they're just not working, they're so cold. So it was very, very easy to make mistakes and I'm just grateful I didn't.
"And then at the end, the last 20-odd laps we were just pounding around as fast as we can, exchanging lap times, and I think that's what racing is all about. Perhaps in the future there will be times when we won't have a Safety Car and their won't be that six seconds gap, it'll be right on the tail either way. Excited for that."
And Hamilton acknowledged there were times in the race when he didn't have the ability to respond to Vettel's pace once the Ferrari moved up to second.
"It is, as I said, very, very close and there were times when Sebastian put laps in and it was hard to even match the time. The last ten or 12 laps he was doing a 35.6 and I was doing a 35.8 and it was very hard to get to where he was. Then there was other times in the race when I was quicker."

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[h=2]'Maybe I chickened onto the brakes too soon' - Vettel[/h] Saturday, 08 April 2017



By RACER staff

Sebastian Vettel offered a little self-criticism of his performance after qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, in which he was edged once again by archrival Lewis Hamilton.
"It was a nice session...I think if we could have been a bit quicker at the end I would have enjoyed it a bit more," said the Ferrari driver in the post-race press conference after splitting Mercedes' Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas on the Shanghai grid. "I think I was very happy with the lap I had. Last corner maybe I lost a little bit – maybe I 'chickened' onto the brakes a bit too soon. Obviously it was very close with Valtteri; good job we got just enough margin to make it to the front row."

Indeed that margin could hardly have been closer, the Finn losing out to Vettel in Q3 by just 0.001sec.

"I think last time it was two thousandths and now it’s one thousandth," mused Bottas, who was then corrected by Vettel on their Australia 2-3 result in qualifying:

"I think it was two hundredths; I don’t know," noted Vettel (in fact it was 0.025s).
"It’s getting closer!" Bottas responded.
Hamilton said the prospect of a wet race would provide another significant wrinkle to what has already proved an unusual weekend, with limited practice running on Friday.
"I heard it’s going to be wet potentially, to start off the race. I’ve not driven the wet tire this season, so that’s going to be fun – to experience the bigger car, wider tires for the first time," he said. "I mean, I did an out-lap yesterday on the extreme, but it was a very slow lap, so I’ve not actually experienced it.

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[h=2]Alonso took risks 'over the limit' to reach Q2[/h] Saturday, 08 April 2017



By Chris Medland / Image by LAT

Fernando Alonso says he was risking being "over the limit" with how hard he pushed in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix to secure 13th place on the grid.

McLaren struggled during the final practice session on Saturday, with Alonso 17th and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne 19th, separated by Marcus Ericsson's Sauber. However, Alonso managed to finish the first part of qualifying in 10th place, securing a spot in Q2 and said he could not improve on his lap time having "pushed like an animal" over team radio.

Asked after qualifying about that comment, Alonso replied: "All the animals... an elephant!

"We really pushed the maximum. We felt very uncompetitive in FP3 so we went into Q1 with some pessimism in our targets. I did the lap flat-out in some corners, not caring too much in some corners, not caring too much about risking over the limit.
"Everything went well, I crossed the line and said, 'Wow, this lap is good!' We were P10 and it was good enough for Q2. P13 for us is a big surprise for us with the expectations we had in qualifying.
"We are not very competitive – we felt this morning that we would have a very difficult weekend ahead of us, we were 17th and 19th [having used] all the power available to us, etc. We thought that this circuit was quite difficult for us but in qualifying, surprise surprise, everything was better than expected and 13th is a good gift."
With the weather forecast suggesting Sunday will see a wet race in Shanghai, Alonso believes such conditions will provide an opportunity for him to move forward from his grid position.
"If it rains in the race as predicted there will be some chaos in the race, as with all wet races, and we need to take as many risks as possible because we are not in the points so we need to take advantage of all the circumstances.