75 responses to “#F1 Race Review: 2015 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix”

1. tl;dr

   Lights out, Verstappen overtook some cars, Pastor was a a complete tool, safety car. the end

   • That’s it, you’re hired.

   • @Fat Hippo, Why was Paster a ‘tool’?

     • He missed the pit entrance. Attempted a 250 k/h drift but failed.

       • @Alex on, So you think having brakes bad enough to make him retire from a race, makes him a ‘tool’?

         • The brakes were damaged when Button clattered into him.

   • Getting so sick of your comments. You never called races dull as dishwater whenever vettel was winning every race by 20 seconds. Now lewis is doing it, and not even by that margin to the second placed man, you seem to have a voice on how boring the races supposedly are.

     • > You never called races dull as dishwater whenever vettel was winning every race by 20 seconds.

       Suggest you read the archives, because your claim is based upon fresh air not fact. I did call those races just as boring

2. Well, at least Nico didn’t say “I could have beaten Lewis”, you can’t do an undercut, if your going onto the slower tyre? but please correct me if I’m wrong.

3. @Fat Hippp, this might help you: @F1: Button penalised for Maldonado collision, drops from 13th to 14th in #ChineseGP results: http://t.co/2YcYulaIQw http://t.co/fBbxX2FFwX

4. “My job is not to look after Nico’s race, my job is to manage the car and bring it home.”

   Perhaps someone needs to remind Lewis that Nico is in the same team. There’s this little competition called the World Constructors Championship, too.

   I’m sure Lewis was just messing with Nico but he’s just going to get in trouble from Mum & Dad now. More thought required.

   • @RogerD for some reason you also forgot to mention that Lewis also this: “I wasn’t trying to back him up into Sebastian because ultimately we do need a one-two and that is a priority to the team. If he wanted to get close to overtake he could have done.

     • Disingenousness is one of the things that Hamilton & Horner share. I reckon there’s more truth in my quote than yours – simples.

       • @RogerD, then I stand corrected. I wasn’t aware that you know Lewis Hamilton personally. Did you go to school together, maybe work together or are your just mates? To call someone disingenuous means you know them well and not ‘telly’ well.

         • No need to stand corrected. Take a seat, you’re making the place look untidy 😉

           But seriously, if we take your comment on board then this forum may as well call stumps and go home ‘cos the fun sponges have shown up.

       • RogerD, oh it’s just ‘a bit of fun’ sorry I misread your tone, no ‘LOL’s or winks, my bad. 😉

   • They finished 1-2 and scored maximum points and increase their lead over Ferrari, so what difference would it have made to result had Nico gotten pass?

     What if he had done what Nico wanted and push flat out and they both wore out their tyres before the target stint length and the Ferrari’s mugged them again, then what?

     To say Lewis ruined his race was just stupid, he qualified second and finished second, so how was his race ruined?

     Nico has been doing a lot of talking about what he’s going to do, how he’d like the Ferrari to get in the fight so as to take points of his team mate. The simple truth is, he’s trying to blame everyone else for his poor performances so far this season. Yesterday he blamed the team for not getting pole, because they told him he had to speed up, or else he wouldn’t have made it to checkered flag in time to do his final lap.

     He had a 25pt start last season, not this time around. He needs to man up and grow a pair, knuckle down and get the job done on the track, because no one is going to make it easy for him.

     • Well said. Nico needs to get rid of this victim mentality fast otherwise he will get crushed.

     • Good comment @Fortis96, I totally agree with every word m8. Lewis did his job well, Nico……didn’t, simples!

   • Of more interesting note is why nico dint try to pass Lewis

     • Simple answer…..

       He doesn’t know how to.

     • Very simple, Lewis would have just upped the tempo if Nico had come into DRS range. In the end he tried to get VET between himself and ROS, I think. He tried to back ROS into VET hoping that Ferrari would do the undercut. It became obvious when he suddenly went over a second faster as soon as ROS pitted.

       We had a word for people like that when I was a lad, but it isn’t printable.

       • Hippo, if Lewis was in Nico’s position, he would’ve just driven up to the back of him and pass. Problem solved.

         • Congrats, Fortis, you fail to see the point, as usual…

           Nico knew if he tried to challenge Lewis all that would happen is his tyres would get wrecked and it would leave him in greater danger from Vettel. The same would be the case the other way around – the team-mates fighing each other would harm their overall pace and put them in danger from Ferrari.

           The best way to maximise points for the team was for both cars to stay far enough ahead without pushing unnecessarily.

           Yes, we know that Nico wouldn’t have got past Lewis in a fight but that isn’t the point here, Lewis knowingly tried to disadvantage Nico and that is not good for the team.

           Things like this are probably part of the reason why Lewis still hasn’t signed a contract….

         • And here’s the point your missing and I think you’d still miss it, even if it was tattooed to your eyeballs….

           Nico wanted Lewis not only to drive his own race, but also his (Nico).

           If he felt Lewis was going too slow and he had the pace, then all he had to do was up the pace and force him to up his own pace.

         • The usual suspects validating Nico’s victim complex. So dumb.

       • If there was not enough evidence in Melbourne then Shanghai gives enough evidence/ reasons to believe that mercedes will fix the races based on Saturday classification

         • Exactly, I wonder if Ferrari does the same? We didn’t see it today, it might have been close within the safety car at end. Maybe better luck next time.

       • And if Lewis upped his tempo then ROS gets what he wanted, again, where’s the problem, b/c that’s not it.

         The issue ROS identified post race is that he had to pit early to cover the undercut by VET, meaning his tyres were knackered by the end of the race. Which could have left him vulnerable except that Merc were easily 0.5s faster on the Prime so he had pulled out a lead on VET who was still slower than him even though his tyres were going off. Therefore, the only person he couldn’t catch was HAM, whose tyres were in better shape.

         I think ROS was irritated b/c HAM took advantage and sorted it early on so ROS couldn’t catch him, end of story. That’s racing. IT was clever and smart and had the shoe been on the other foot, the ROSfosi would’ve been crowing about his cerebral prowess.

         W/R/T his inlaps, well he followed a similar pattern when he was on Prime tyre. ROS ran faster early in stint and HAM began to go faster later. What we don’t know is how much life was let in his Option when he pitted, which would be much more telling.

         One other thing, Bonnington on radio told him flat out he’d followed the plan to perfection, so don’t assume it was just Lewis in a vacuum here, he had his entire side of the garage with him.

         • Mattp55 you have it exactly right. I recall FH claiming Nico cleverly let Lewis get on his gearbox in advance of the pit stop window in Brazil last year.

           Lewis never would’ve let Nico stay within DRS range today … THAT’s controlling the gap.

         • We do know that he was complaining about his front tyres being shot a lap or so before he pitted, so I don’t think he could have run much longer in any event.

       • Really, you think Lewis would rather see Vettel 2nd than Rosberg? With Rosberg, Lewis knows it all comes down to driving skill, as they have the same car. He knows he has him covered because of that. With Vettel, the fear would be that the Ferrari overhauls the Merc in performance, which he has far less control over. Vettel also being second in the standings should put paid to anyone’s silly notion that Lewis wanted to push Rosberg down to 3rd by backing him up. Truly garbage.

         • It is indeed garbage, especially when you consider that at race time Vettel was only 3 points behind Hamilton in the drivers standings and Rosberg 10. What kind of weird logic would make a driver choose a rival team driver for second place instead of his teammate? Remember that the WCC is calculated using both drivers WDC points. Some people could do with a little more facts and a little less conjecture.

       • Fat Hippo, does the undercut work, if your putting on slower shoes and isn’t it every drivers dream to have a slower car in front of them and 1 second to boot?

         PS. ‘Inspired’ is printable.

         • It does if the option tyres on your opponent are so degraded that the achievable lap time is still slower than a new set of primes, then the under-cut still works as it doesn’t take too long to take 1.8sec of life out of the options. Where as the primes start slightly slower but drop off much slower giving more consistent laps times for longer, supposedly.

       • “Very simple, Lewis would have just upped the tempo if Nico had come into DRS range.” (not specifically directed at you

         Yeah, so why didn’t Nico come into DRS range then? Because he was worried about ‘his’ tyres… who’s problem is that? Lewis drove his race, which quite possibly did involve backing Rosberg up, and the team gave him the hurry up to attempt to protect the group result with the view of the big picture. From what I could see, he respected this and drove exactly to the deltas given, Nico was given the priority stop as belt a braces… nothing to see here. If we complain about this we complain about racing and racign strategy. Its not like Rosberg was incapable of some counter action.

       • Hate Lewis much? How about some facts:
         – The original plan was for the team to do OPP, but as the options held well enough, they switched strategies to OOP. This required an extended second stint.
         – Lewis had to do a longer second stint on options than any they tried before in practice. He had to take care of the tires as they did not know how well the tires would hold up on the Merc and the ferrari’s. In Malaysia the ferrari’s were better on the options which brought them victory. A very real threat for China.
         – Track temperature was higher during the race than during practice or qualifying which gave ferrari a massive benefit in Malaysia so again it was important to save the tires as the same thing could happen in China.
         – Hamilton drove to a delta the team thought was alright, but after Rosberg complaining the team asked Lewis to speedup to a new delta of 1:43:7 which he did. The next five laps were 1:43:722 averaged. They asked him to go faster after that and he did.
         – If Rosberg thought the speed was too low, he could have overtaken Hamilton. This is racing last time I looked. Last year Hamilton did exactly that but Rosberg didn’t have the guts to do so. He should live with the consequences and stop whining.
         That you think Hamilton tried to get Vettel between himself and Rosberg is pure conjecture and therefore rubbish. What was clear is that Hamilton did a good job of preserving his tires enabling him to put in some good laps at the end of the second stint.

         So not so simple. I could reply I have a word for people like you, but I find it bad taste and very disrespectful to stoop to that level. In fact I find your whole reply simplistic and unworthy of this site.

       • Fat – suggest you take a look at the championship table and see exactly who is LH nearest challenger…. It is not his teammate and thus your comments are completely stupid.
         Merc were using those tyres for many more laps than they had been able in the practice sessions. Thus LH had no idea what was left until he put a few quick ones in at the end of the first stint. As indeed his team had no idea until they grot them back in the pits.
         That, your angst aside, is how you win races. The fact that NR sat moaning all day simply says he has no idea how to cope with LH without mishaps.

     • He wouldn’t be able to. Partly due to lack of racing skill but mainly because Lewis would just up his pace. Nico – and the team – knew the best way to maximise points in the race was to stay just far enough ahead of Ferrari that they couldn’t pull off a trick strategy.

       Lewis, as usual, thinks only of himself and tries to push Nico back behind Vettel, not thinking that this will cause the team problems, that it means if he needs it he won’t get support later in the series, and that if Ferrari keep developing the way they are that it may actually be Vettel, not Nico who is his main challenger at the end of the season.

       It’s a bit multi-21, Lewis did what was best for him but paid no heed to what is best for the team as a whole. We’ll have the same argument – do you need to be a selfish git to be a champion or does it degrade his achievement.

       I don’t think there will be much agreement on here!

       • Holy tempest in a teapot!! Lewis bad, Nico hard done by, we get it.

         LAME.

         • No, lame is not even trying to make a counter-argument…

         • @stephen hughes
           TBH mattpts55 delivered a pretty comprehensive counter-argument about 9 comments above, especially his last point that this wasn’t Lewis operating in a vacuum but rather with the backing of at least one half of the garage.
           As far as Nico’s concerned, I think he would be better served by having these kind of discussions in his team’s post-race debrief, rather than in the press conference. I’m starting to think about reserving Nice a place in my Barrichello and Massa file!

         • @StephenHughes, should I just copy ‘n’ paste a prior post back to you again? You can see my thoughts and arguments in those posts. The entire premise of your arguments is that Nico is helpless against a bully, and so is deserving of outside assistance. THIS IS F1. Time for Nico to hang up the helmet & gloves?

       • Disagree. Nico should try to get his mojo back, get poles on Saturdays and do his talking on Sundays. That all there is to it so he can be the one who can dictate the race. Lewis simply outthought and outraced him. The team still got a 1-2 and maximum points. I don’t see the problem. You are overcomplicating things.

   • You guys are like little kids. This is F1 and it is about racing. We didn’t wake early in the morning for this kind of crap. If he thought that he was faster, he should have overtaken him.

     What will he have done if it was Vettel in front him? Would he still have asked his team to tell vettel to speed up?

     • i really don’t get the problem. if nico had pushed he could have either overtaken hamilton or made him go faster. why whine over the radio, if you can just push and solve the problem yourself. i think this is more him being mad at the situation he is in and getting agitated over not finding an answer to hamiltons pace.

       • Not unlike Hungary 2014, by the looks of it. Then too Nico never quite showed the pace to seriously get within Hamilton’s DRS range…

5. What a great simple way to work with graphs: dotted lines! Certain confusing websites can learn a trick (or 2) from TJ13!

   • Thanks, bro. Glad you found it clear. Simple, mostly because I’m a two-finger techno geek. Any suggestions for improvement welcomewd

     • …as in it takes me about half an hour to punch in simple sentences with a keyboard!

6. @ Stephen, except of course, when requested by the team Lewis went faster. So if that’s the case then Lewis did exactly the right thing. Looked after his race and did what the team asked.

   • Seb was never going to undercut Nico, because on lap 29 when Seb’s engineer asked if he could go any faster, he said just a little, but he was already on the limit of the tyres. Nico then followed that message on lap 30 by saying his left front was already shot.

   • He required a second radio call to comply. Wolff refused to dismiss out of hand that radio instructions had not been properly followed

7. Lewis Hamilton has just told DC, during a BBC interview, that had he deliberately backed up Rosberg, he would have broken Mercedes team rules.
   Time for Rosberg and the tin hat brigade to STFU.

   • Two things to me point out exactly what game Lewis was playing.

     First, as soon as Nico pitted he dropped the fastest lap time by nearly a second.

     Secondly, the team basically called him bluff by saying stop dicking around or we’ll give Nico the preferred strategy (and probably the race).

     I don’t think the undercut was ever on but from what Nico said at the end I wonder if the safety car basically saved his race as it sounds like his tyres were shot with a few laps left so he could well have been a sitting duck for Vettel.

     Which also answers all the ‘why didn’t he push Lewis and overtake him’ – running that close he was already hurting his tyres, pushing Lewis harder would have exacerbated the problem and may even have meant an extra stop was necessary.

     We all know Nico isn’t going to win a race where he is behind Lewis from the start. He doesn’t have the speed or the overtaking ability.

     The point remains that Lewis could well have cost the team a 1-2 today, he certainly made such a result harder to achieve than was necessary.

     It also shows that the Mercs do seem to have tyre issues and that could well open them up to pressure from the Ferraris later in the season. For that reason the team needs to bank as many points as possible now and it is better for Lewis to try and help Nico take as many points off the Ferraris as possible.

     When things shake out it is likely that all this is immaterial and Lewis will win this WDC this year by a healthy margin. But you never know. Sky was showing a review of the 1984 season where Prost lost by half a point after looking a shoe-in at the start of the season. It’s always a what-if but to the team the only answer is to maximise the points and take it from there.

     • If running behind Hamilton would ruin Rosberg’s tyres, what do you think would have happened to Vettel’s tyres?
       You are aware that Mercedes had to change their race strategy because of rise in temperature? Neither the drivers or the team knew how long the soft tyres would last in the middle of the race, although they did know that cooler weather towards the end of the race would enable them to get the best out the harder tyres. Rosberg is a serial whiner. Today he was put in his place.

       • Evidence is the Ferrari isn’t as hard on its tyres as the Merc. I think Rosberg had a genuine concern that he wasn’t able to take advantage of the superior car performance when necessary to be sure of staying ahead of Vettel.

         Lewis never has and probably never will see the long game. He thinks it is clever to dick his team-mate around not realising that he isn’t the threat. Rosberg can at least see that they need to maximise points as a team while they still have a pace advantage over Ferrari as once that goes there is no guarantee of a 1-2 Merc finish in the championship and there may even be a risk of Ferrari winning the WCC.

         All Lewis is thinking is that he needs to keep putting Nico in his place and sod the team.

         • Have you by any chance seen the race result? Mercedes 1st and 2nd. That’s what the team wanted and that’s what they got. If Rosberg is so fed up with how Hamilton races, he should qualify better and learn to race, otherwise he can STFU and enjoy the £15 million a year going into his bank account, little of which he actually earns.

         • Apart from Malaysia, which was freak conditions, there is no direct evidence that the Ferrari’s are better on their tyres than the Mercedes.

           I think Lewis doesn’t need to ‘dick his team-mate around’, Nico is quite good at doing that himself.

         • Evidence is the Merc is a bit better on it’s tires in China than Ferrari. Evidence is the Ferrari was a bit better on it’s tires in Malaysia than Merc.

           Everything else you say is conjecture and should be treated accordingly.

     • Two things to me point out exactly what game Lewis was playing.
       Couple of points…
       Mercedes did indeed give Rosberg the “preferred strategy” – ie they did indeed pit him first before Hamilton at the second stop. Somehow didn’t hand him the race. 🙂
       Secondly, at no point was Rosberg running within 2 seconds of Hamilton during the second stint (he started complaining when around 2.5 sec behind, and Hamilton then immediately responded to team instructions to speed up). As Hamilton’s tyres were a lap older (he pitted first at the first stop), what is evident is Rosberg’s complete failure to preserve his tyres.

       As for being ‘a sitting duck for Vettel’, Vettel’s tyres were a lap older than Rosberg’s in the final stint. Mercedes had already outlasted Ferrari on the option – and we know that they were significantly better on the prime.

       Rosberg needs to concentrate on improving his tyre management, rather than trying to manage his teammate’s race from line astern.

8. His lap time went down because he was doing inlaps, nothing unusual about that. IF he’d kept that pace for 6 laps then point taken, but he didn’t. He set fast lap and then was slower and they brought him in.

   W/R/T your second point it will depend on temperature and compound. Ferrari were slower period on the Medium compound. They were almost as fast on the Soft, but Vettel was starting to lose time to both cars when he pitted first. It might’ve worked better had he gone long and let Mercedes go Prime and then pitted for Option as he might have got ahead of Nico on pace, but it would have been iffy.

   AS far as the games racers play, judging by Merc’s Twitter feed (they did a Q&A) Lewis seems to have been well within whatever internal rules they set. I suspect Lewis and his engineers were well aware ahead of time and gamed the situation for maximum advantage and I would expect no less from Nico were the situation reversed. Still, I’m sure we will hear about it if he was uber naughty over the next few days, but to me it’s hardly a multi 21 situation, as its not like he got on the radio and said screw you I’m not speeding up to help Nico out. I think in general the people jumping on Lewis are the ones who dislike him anyway, but frankly this sort of controversy is good for the sport so away go the headlines and we’ll have days and days of LuLu vs Britney articles to look forward to.

9. ” … Lewis picked up the pace after being instructed to by Mercedes, but not sufficiently as the team were forced to pit Rosberg first to protect him from Vettel’s undercut. … ”

   Yes, contrary to some people thinking otherwise, Lewis did actually pick up his pace. Nico failed to match him even with one-lap fresher tyres than Lewis’s; although he did pull a slightly better gap to Vettel in the two or three laps prior to Vettel pitting. Ferrari saw that Lewis had picked up his pace and that Nico had started to pull away from Vettel. So Ferrari decided to pit Vettel before Rosberg got too far ahead. Mercedes covered that by bringing in Nico before Lewis (just as they had warned Lewis that this was on the cards if Nico failed to build a big margin over Vettel). As soon as Vettel pitted, Lewis knew it was hammer-time for him and so he pushed to the limit (just as he did in Brazil after Nico’s pit stop).

   All pretty normal racing. Move on, no conspiracy to see here.

   😉

   • The first message was to work to a delta of a 1:43:7, his next lap was a 46:66, 46:8. When the next message came, they said he needed to do a minimum 1:43:3 or else they would need to pit Nico first, did a 43:0

10. Not a classic, but an exciting race with enough action. Hamilton controled it perfectly, one of the perks of being on pole and leading from the first lap. Nico has reason to be upset, but not to complain to the press. It just makes him seem like a sour loser. Next time out he should lead from the go and then race at the most adequate pace. It’s as simple as that.

    • That won’t work either… Bahrain, Monza, Austin, Japan and Abu Dhabi….

11. Some of you guys are just unbelievable – Defending the point that Rosberg is right in saying Hamilton was ‘holding him up’ is utterly ridiculous.

    The guy in front is slowing you down? Oh yes! There’s this marvelous thing called racing where racers try to overtake one another to win a race.

    Let us say for the sake of argument, that Lewis did it deliberately – Does it not show that Lewis is clearly very good at thinking in the race and it’s actually a very smart way of going about things – Put your team mate under pressure, with the chance that the driver behind will overtake them and hey presto, the gap to your main title rival in terms of points will increase. To be honest, It would have been great for us Hamfosi if Lewis was doing it deliberately, but the fact is, that he was just managing the tyres and there was no reason to push much harder because Nico was not threatend. He pushed straight away, when asked to, by his engineer over the radio after Nico had complained. It is simply not feasible to think that Lewis was doing this, as he had no idea as to the gap between nico and seb.

    Rosberg should be thankful that Lewis wasn’t pushing too hard as when he did push, for example towards the end of his first stint, the pace he had over Nico was absolutely devastating. He had that car completely hooked up, and tyres were well under control. Rosberg getting frustrated because Lewis has stepped up his game yet again, and this is one of the best chances any driver can get to snap up a championship. With Lewis in the team, his chances of winning that all elusive title are greatly diminished and he knows it.

12. Another thing… If Rosberg though that backing up the guy behind you into the guy behind him (in order to preserve your tyres and destroy his) was such a devastating tactic), why didn’t he try it on Vettel ?

    Oh, and accusing Hamilton of “thinking about himself” !?!
    The horror.
    Does he think he is racing with St Francis of Assisi or something ?

13. Sky Midnight News opened with some interesting photos/captions. Firstly a picture of Nico, Lewis and Seb from the after-race press conference, with the caption “Presidential Campaign”. This was followed shortly by a photo of an (IS ?) explosion with the caption “F1 Spat”. I know Nico is unhappy, but I didn’t realise things were this bad! 🙂

    (Apologies if this posting is considered inappropriate – I’ve read this site daily for ages, but this is my first posting. I hope the locals will be friendly? 🙂 Also, I did take some poor quality photos of the TV when these photos/caption were on-screen and as going to post them, but couldn’t figure out how to 🙁 )

    Brian

    • Welcome Brian – we are happy for such satirical comment to be made – please do not be a stranger in future.

      Other commentators will instruct you in the art of picture posting

      • Thank you, Your Honor. BTW thanks for providing such a great resource for the F1 community! 🙂

        Brian

    • Not inappropriate at all and welcome aboard. If you’ve been reading the site that long you’ll know that the only time the gloves come off is for Hamilton Rosberg do’s. But well made points welcome regardless of driver orientation. And funny. Funny is always good.

      • Thanks mattpt55. I’ll try to avoid Hamilton Rosberg do’s, for now at least 🙂

        Brian

14. This weekend we had WSBK and MotoGP races as well as F1. It was enlightening to compare these. The differences go far beyond the number of wheels used. The pitiful decline of F1 in recent seasons is highlighted by the way in which intelligent changes to the technical regulations have benefited MotoGP – to the extent that Suzuki, for example, can now re-enter the series and achieve more than decent results in their first season back. Witness too the way in which Ducati have turned around their results. The competitiveness has been enhanced by intelligent adjustment of ECU, tyre and fuel regulations with the current differentials being gradually levelled out over a couple of seasons. This is already abolishing the total domination by two teams (Honda and Yamaha) which was threatening the entire series. WSBK is equally or even more competitive – and for the patriotic Brits amongst us, is now dominated by British riders.
    F1 needs to learn some of these lessons but almost certainly won’t.

    • No offence and as an avid watcher and unusually a participant of some of the series you mention over a 35 year period, I find the handing of ‘concessions’ to some crap teams offering a completely bountiful set of opportunities (often to very wealthy teams mind, Ducati – 12 engines, 4 litres of fuel, special softer tyres and unlimited engine and chassis mods just as long as you use our electronics… Which are developed by your supplier anyway) all to allow frankly lesser able racers to occupy spots on the grid they do not have the talent to get, completely reprehensible. Particularly as its essentially blackmail.

      However it has produced some interesting racing and the cream rises. The day however MM or VR really think say Dovi is a real threat without such concessions? The records speak for themselves really – along with the fact both Ducatis ran out of fuel now they only have 2litres more…

      It would kill F1 – but I suppose would allow more Hollywood type of races where say the likes of Maldanardo gets a win despite being so completely incompetent before or since, along with some of the other incompetent drivers making the numbers up. Anything as long as its entertaining right? God forbid the best chaps win. That would be terrible!

      I guess your in that bracket!

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