2013 Chinese Grand Prix - Victory for flawless Alonso

By Simon Wright

Fernando Alonso flies the Ferrari flag aloft after victory in China

Fernando Alonso put in a flawless drive to record victory at the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday. The Spaniard (pictured) showed supreme pace all day on a three-stop strategy, managing his Pirelli tyres superbly.

Melbourne race winner Kimi Raikkonen was second, but a distant 10 seconds adrift of a dominant Alonso, who had control of the race from the moment he passed pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton at the start of the fifth lap.

Hamilton resisted a late attack from world champion Sebastian Vettel in a gripping finale to register his second successive podium for his new team Mercedes.  Both Jenson Button and Paul di Resta claimed strong points finishes, but last year’s winner Nico Rosberg and an unhappy Mark Webber were among those out of luck in China as they failed to finish.

Once again, the talk of the paddock was tyres, especially as Pirelli’s softer tyre showed absolutely no signs of durability throughout the weekend. Six laps was the most any driver could achieve on this rubber on raceday, and although it led to some complex strategies down the grid, it made Saturday’s qualifying session fairly tedious with every team desperate to save fresh sets for the main event.

Red Bull’s lack of single lap pace meant they tried a conservative approach and Vettel didn’t attempt to set a serious lap time in Q3, meaning he started from ninth.  Hamilton became the first British driver since Sir Stirling Moss in the 1950s to take a pole position for Mercedes on Saturday, ahead of Raikkonen, Alonso and Rosberg.

The 2008 world champion converted pole into the lead off the start, but Raikkonen was left wanting, and got easily overwhelmed by the fast-starting Ferraris of Alonso and Felipe Massa.

Hamilton though couldn’t build up a useful lead to protect himself from the DRS effect, and on lap five, he was a sitting target as both Alonso and Massa cruised past on the entry to turn one.

Both Mercedes cars had severe tyre wear problems from the beginning, and they pitted a lap later.  Contact from Daniel Ricciardo early on hobbled the balance on Rosberg’s car, although his retirement on lap 21 in the pits was caused by a suspension issue that was more likely linked to a hydraulics problem on Saturday morning rather than this incident with the Toro Rosso.

The other Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne got up close and personal with Webber, who had a miserable weekend from the outset.

Sporting an appalling new haircut didn’t seem to bring any good luck to the Aussie, and he ran out of fuel in qualifying, leaving him a dismal 14^th on the grid.  Failing to provide the required one litre FIA fuel sample after the session saw his times deleted and forced a pitlane start.

Although he made good progress after ditching the soft tyres at the end of the opening circuit, he clashed with Vergne on lap 14 entering turn five. The incident damaged his front wing, and spun the Frenchman around. After an unsafe release from the unscheduled stop, an issue with the rear of the car forced him to crawl around back to the pits.

The departure of a wheel finished off Webber's appalling weekend

The rear issue became evident exiting the hairpin on lap 15, when Webber’s left-rear wheel (pictured) made a bid for freedom, rolling dangerously across the road and was only narrowly missed by his team-mate Vettel and the Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg.  Retirement was inevitable. 

To cap off his Shanghai shocker, the team were fined for the unsafe pit release, while Webber received a harsh three-place grid penalty for the race in Bahrain next Sunday, as the stewards deemed him guilty to have caused an avoidable collision with Vergne. With speculation mounting over the Red Bull number two having signed an agreement to drive for Porsche in the World Endurance Championship next season, he will want to forget China 2013 in a hurry.

Webber wasn’t the only one in hot water with the race stewards. Eight drivers were hauled before them and drivers’ representative Mark Blundell after the event for use of the DRS system under yellow flags.  No further action was taken due to an FIA telemetry issue, and Esteban Gutierrez was given a five-place grid demotion for Bahrain after his clumsy accident with Adrian Sutil on lap four, taking the pair out of the race.

Having done well to fight past the two-stopping traffic of Vergne, di Resta, Button and Hulkenberg, Alonso inherited the lead again from Vettel with one of his more easier overtakes on the reigning champion just after half-distance.  With the Spaniard in complete command, attention switched to the fight for second place.

Despite a run-in with Sergio Perez, which damaged the nose of his car, Raikkonen showed his championship might and continued without losing too much time.  He used the final round of stops to pit earlier and undercut Hamilton to claim second spot. 

Vettel’s different strategy had him in the hunt, and he eventually made the move onto the unfancied soft tyres on lap 51.  Urged to go for it with fresher rubber, and tyres that would at least give him phenomenal grip for three laps, Sebastian ate into the 12-second deficit to Raikkonen and Hamilton.

He set the fastest lap in the process, but going slightly off-line to lap the Caterham of Charles Pic on the last circuit led to the German not getting the desired exit out of turn 12 onto the backstraight.  With that, Hamilton just held on by less than half a second to claim the final podium spot.

Hamilton admitted he was slightly disappointed with the lack of race pace from Mercedes.  He said to BBC: “We just don’t have the pace of the Ferraris and the Lotuses in the race conditions.

“I’m not sure where we’re losing out.  There are definitely a couple of areas that we can focus on the car, but we’ve got to bring some more updates.”

Nobody was taking anything away from Alonso, who stormed to his second success in the Chinese Grand Prix, the last one coming back in his Renault days in 2005.  The win was also the 31^st of his career, taking him equal fourth with Nigel Mansell in the all-time winners list, and it was his first victory since the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim last July.

Raikkonen was second, followed by the battling Hamilton and Vettel.  Button’s two-stop strategy saw McLaren achieve their maximum result with fifth place, whilst major tyre graining ruined Massa’s afternoon and left him in a frustrated sixth place – some 40 seconds behind his race winning team-mate.

Ricciardo recovered from an early stop to change a front wing to finish a fabulous seventh for Toro Rosso, achieving the best result of his career.

The Aussie spoke afterwards, saying: “I am really pleased to score my first points of the season and to confirm the qualifying performance.  After yesterday afternoon I kept calm, knowing the real work would begin today.

“Of course, the early pitstop to change the nose affected our plans and towards the end, Massa’s Ferrari was looking bigger and bigger ahead of me!  So yes, maybe I could have done even better, but for now I’ll settle for this seventh place.”

Di Resta was eighth, with Romain Grosjean blaming traffic for a rather underwhelming performance on his way to ninth.  Hulkenberg battled hard for the final point, after two sluggish pitstops, ahead of a disappointing Perez and Vergne.  Max Chilton once again made it to the finish, this time a lap adrift in 17^th spot.

Fernando Alonso has laid down a positive statement of intent in China, and was the man to beat here.  However, with three winners in three races from three different teams, it doesn’t look like one driver will run away with this championship, and the next chapter will be told in just seven days time, with the Bahrain Grand Prix completing the first Asian leg of this 2013 championship.

	2013 UBS CHINESE GRAND PRIX RESULT
Pos	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Reason	Grid
1	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	56	1hr 36min 26secs	3
2	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus Renault	56	+10.1secs	2
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes GP	56	+12.3secs	1
4	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault	56	+12.5secs	9
5	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	56	+35.2secs	8
6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	56	+40.8secs	5
7	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari	56	+42.6secs	7
8	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes	56	+51.0secs	11
9	Romain Grosjean	Lotus Renault	56	+53.4secs	6
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber Ferrari	56	+56.5secs	10
11	Sergio Perez	McLaren Mercedes	56	+1min 03.8secs	12
12	Jean-Eric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari	56	+1min 12.6secs	15
13	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault	56	+1min 33.8secs	16
14	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault	56	+1min 35.4secs	14
15	Jules Bianchi	Marussia Cosworth	55	1 Lap	18
16	Charles Pic	Caterham Renault	55	1 Lap	20
17	Max Chilton	Marussia Cosworth	55	1 Lap	19
18	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault	55	1 Lap	21
R	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	21	Suspension/Vibration	4
R	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault	15	Lost Wheel	22
R	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	5	Collision with Gutierrez	13
R	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber Ferrari	4	Collision with Sutil	17

Drivers’ Championship after 3 rounds: 1. Sebastian Vettel 52, 2. Kimi Raikkonen 49, 3. Fernando Alonso 43, 4. Lewis Hamilton 40, 5. Felipe Massa 30, 6. Mark Webber 26, 7. Nico Rosberg 12, 8. Jenson Button 12, 9. Romain Grosjean 11, 10. Paul di Resta 8, 11. Daniel Ricciardo 6, 12. Adrian Sutil 6, 13. Nico Hulkenberg 5, 14. Sergio Perez 2, 15. Jean-Eric Vergne 1

Constructors’ Championship after 3 rounds: 1. Red Bull Racing 78, 2. Ferrari 73, 3. Lotus 60, 4. Mercedes GP 52, 5. McLaren 14, 6. Force India 14, 7. Scuderia Toro Rosso 7, 8. Sauber 5

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