Today’s Chinese Grand Prix was an intriguing race with competing drivers and teams using different strategies to deal with the problem of the softer compound only lasting five or six laps before going off. This was perhaps Formula One at its best, the teams having to constantly react to what their rivals were doing and make the best use of the tyres they had. It was like a Test match on wheels.
Fernando Alonso and Ferrari were too quick for everybody. Once he and Felipe Massa had overtaken Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen acquainted himself with the rear end of Sergio Perez’s McLaren, he was never seriously threatened.
Raikkonen had already suffered a poor start and was, naturally, unhappy when Perez blocked his path. Although confident enough to go around the outside of both Toro Rosso drivers Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo, he may have to take a less aggressive approach with Perez in the future. Like Pastor Maldonado, the Mexican is beginning to develop an unwanted reputation among his fellow drivers.
He’s also still struggling for pace. We can attribute some of that to the fact that the McLaren is clearly not an easy to drive animal this year, and the way Jenson Button was complaining about his tyres suffering when several car lengths behind lapped traffic, suggests as much. Nevertheless, at the moment he looks a little out of his depth. While he shouldn’t be expected to be beating Button, whose tyre management is always highly impressive, he should be be much closer.
Nor does it help that Nico Hulkenberg, who took over his seat at Sauber, enjoyed another fine afternoon, comfortably keeping Vettel behind him when leading. The German certainly seems to have settled in to his new team very quickly and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is moving onwards and upwards in the next couple of years.
Someone else who did himself no harm is Ricciardo. He did outstandingly to qualify in the top 10 and then finished in seventh place, keeping his nose clean and beating the Lotus of Romain Grosjean for a career-best performance. A few more drives like that and he’ll be a strong contender to replace compatriot Mark ‘three-wheels-on-my-wagon-and-no-fuel-in-it’ Webber if relations between him, the team and Vettel continue to sour.
Grosjean, like Perez, is hardly giving Raikkonen much to think about. This could be because Raikkonen has significantly upped his game this year, or that Grosjean is racing less aggressively than he wants to after his spate of accidents last year, or a combination of both, but like Perez, he is lagging behind. I think Robert Kubica might pose Kimi a few more questions, but sadly the possibility of seeing the Pole make an F1 return looks unlikely.
What the struggles of Perez, Grosjean, and even Massa to a degree, mean, is that the constructors title is likely to be headed once again to Red Bull unless the other teams up their game. While Webber is often slower than Vettel, the car is quick enough for him to score big points and although the Mercedes pair of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg is arguably the strongest on the grid, the car is neither swift enough or reliable enough to challenge for race wins.
With the Bahrain GP coming up just next week, can any of the drivers or teams make a significant leap forward, or are we looking at another Alonso v Raikkonen battle for the honours?