2010 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix (Shanghai)
Last year’s Chinese GP produced a Red Bull 1-2; this time it was a McLaren 1-2. Jenson Button again lead his fellow countryman Lewis Hamilton in another wet-dry-wet race. Once again, Button judged conditions perfectly, just like he had done at Melbourne. Sebastian Vettel continued to be Saturday’s star, as he secured his third pole position of the season, pipping team-mate Mark Webber by about a quarter of a second. Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg were in P3 and P4, followed by the McLaren pair. At the start of the race, there were some showers, and most of the front runners immediately stopped for intermediate tyres. Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button stayed out and took P1 and P2. Fernando Alonso got it all wrong, as he made a jump start to lead the race, for which he was given a drive-through penalty. The inter-runners soon had to switch back to slicks, as the rain didn’t come down enough. Meanwhile, Button passed Rosberg when the latter ran wide in a corner, and began to control the race from there on.
Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were the ones who fought their way up the order, and finished 2nd and 4th
respectively. Though they were helped in their efforts by the arrival of the safety car on two occasions, it was pretty impressive driving from the two. Hamilton finished just 1.5 seconds behind his team-mate, but again Jenson Button had collected maximum points without having to do any of the heroics which Hamilton had to showcase. Robert Kubica took fifth place for Renault ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Vitaly Petrov scored his first F1 points with seventh despite a spin. Mark Webber finished 8th, Felippe Massa 9th and Michael Schumacher 10th. Sutil might have got by Schumacher for the final point had the race gone on for another lap, but the Force India driver ended the day without a point. Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus finished ahead of one of the Williams cars. It helped that he made only two pits stops while Nico Hülkenberg came in six times. Behind them were the two HRTs of Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok, the latter suffering a spin in the wet conditions.
There was action in the pit lane as Lewis Hamilton was released alongside Sebastian Vettel during their pit stop – a move which could have easily earned him a time penalty. Vettel, on his part, edged right, squeezing the McLaren dangerously close to the air lines of other teams’ pit boxes. Hamilton took a hand off the wheel and gestured at Vettel. Stewards later decided not to penalize both the drivers, and gave Hamilton and Vettel reprimands. With this, the first part of the 2010 Formula1 season comes to an end, as there is a 2 week break between China and the next race at Spain. We also move into the European leg of the championship, and all teams are expected to bring in major upgrades for the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya. Will it affect the pecking order – we’ll find out in two weeks time. Jenson Button leads the driver’s championship as we head to Europe, just like he had done last season, but this time he doesn’t hold the same advantage he did like last year. However, he along with Nico Rosberg, was supposedly doing one of the toughest jobs in F1 and has done particularly well so far.
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