[Octane_Power]

Originally Posted by zenren

I want to see how Rosberg performs when bottled up behind Red Bulls with Alonso breathing down his throat.

O yes, things will get quite spiced up.
But as Hatari has said, he will get the Bulls on the straights and then I want to see how Alonso works against Vettel and Ricciardo.

It will be a morale boost for Alonso himself if he ends up on the podium.

Won't be watching the race cuz of exams though :(

-Bhargav

[Hatari]

Originally Posted by fz_rider

I'm no Rosberg fan! But don't you think, without safety car in the scene, he had a better chance.

Nope.. Lewis had already built a 10 second gap which Nico would have needed time to close. Post safety car, he had the tow/DRS and 10 laps of trying to get past, handed to him on a platter while being on softer/quicker tires.

He didnt really plan a move just kept lunging out of desperation to get past.

[anachronix]

Kimi doing PR job for Ferrari in Shanghai



Source: AF1

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Hatari

Nico said there was a problem with his delta time reading on the steering wheel which showed he was 6 tenths down after Sector 2 when in fact he was 2 tenths up. Therefore he took a risk on the final corner to make up some of it.

Ok, even if we ignore China due to this glitch, its still 1 out of 3 that Nico managed to get to the front row.

It doesn't bode well as a championship material. The car is worthy of a world championship, so is Lewis. Frankly, I don't feel Nico deserves a championship the way he is performing but if reliability woes strike Lewis, he has a good chance.

I do agree that it would be immaterial for him during the race since he has the best car on the grid and would get past the Red Bulls eventually today. Whenever the Red Bulls catch up with the Mercedes, it don't expect to see Rosberg on podium anymore.

Tyre graining seems to affect Mercedes more than Red Bull. So it'll be interesting to see if it would play in favour of Red Bull.

[LandCruiser]

Good job Lewis. But just one team dominating and winning races is boring. This is happening for last 5-6 years now. It was great when Ferrari, McLaren and Renault were fighting closely for some years. Now again back to seeing Red Bull domination followed by Merc domination!

The reshuffle in Ferrari should have happened at least 2 years back. With a car like this they are going to end up between 3-6th position in constructors and drivers championship. They are still good 2-3 years away from building a competitive car, but that is possible with only some strong leadership!

[nipcarlover]

Qualifying was pretty awesome, fantastic lap from Hamilton, 6 tenths up on Ricciardo, even though Ricciardo did an extra lap.

Mercedes seem to have as good or really close aero compared to Red Bull, but a much better engine, so they can match the Bulls in the sectors that are dominated by corners and pull away by 6-7 tenths on the straights. In qualifying the Merc Speed trap was 20 km/h faster than the Red Bulls, which is a massive speed difference.

Looking forward to the race in a couple hours time.

[Addy81]

Originally Posted by LandCruiser

Good job Lewis. But just one team dominating and winning races is boring. This is happening for last 5-6 years now. It was great when Ferrari, McLaren and Renault were fighting closely for some years. Now again back to seeing Red Bull domination followed by Merc domination!

The reshuffle in Ferrari should have happened at least 2 years back. With a car like this they are going to end up between 3-6th position in constructors and drivers championship. They are still good 2-3 years away from building a competitive car, but that is possible with only some strong leadership!

I Think its too early in the season to talk about Domination my Mercedes, I feel this would be a close season as we could see Red bull catching up quite fast, even in Bahrain we could see red bulls were quick, considering where they were during start of season its a good fightback, think Williams, Force India and Ferrari also will play a part in the championship this season.

yes, Ferrari should have at least started making changes at the start of last season to have a team working on this year's car, with all the changes.

[SR71-Blackbird]

Fernando Alonso seems to be having a very good race so far for ferrari!
Amazing start even after the clash with Massa in the first corner and currently running in 2nd position behind Hamilton!

Rosberg with his telemetry system not working and Massa with his disastrous pit stop seem to be a little unlucky today!

[tharian]

Cannot help but feel bad for Alonso. Looking at his body language, its like he's almost lost hope.
Just hope the car gets better during the season .

Good race nonetheless,not as entertaining as Bahrain though.

[vb-saan]

Not really an entertaining race, with no real challenge to Lewis. Though Nico was looking a bit grumpy after the race, it was indeed a good drive by him to finish second. Alonso looked happy to get his first podium finish of the season. And both Nico and Alonso were really fortunate to brush off the initial touch from the Williams duo.

[nipcarlover]

Pretty good race, not as much fun as Bahrain, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Fantastic drive by Alonso, finishing on the podium. Ricciardo and Vettel did a good job as well, and their tussle in the middle of the race was awesome. Hülkenberg up there as always, along with Bottas. Impressive job by Kvyat, finishing in the points for the third time this season.

The conversation where Vettel refused to follow team orders was epic.

Rocky: Let Daniel through
Vettel: What tires is he on?
Rocky: Primes, but on different strategy (Could also be 'Primes, but three laps fresher')
Vettel: Tough luck

But Ricciardo managed to pass him anyway.

Should be in for a good haul of points in F1FRL, but let's see.

Next race, we reach the start of the European races, but it's three weeks away.

[theMAG]

Saw the initial few minutes of this race - my first in 2014. Mercedes seems to have a significant advantage over their nearest competitor. Unless Mercedes botches up reliability and their nearest competition can find 0.5 seconds, looks like a Mercedes year.

[zenren]

UPDATE: Chinese GP results are as of Lap 54/56 since the chequered flag was shown to Hamilton and the end of lap 55. Another example of the Chinese quality control!

That means Kobayashi will be classified behind Bianchi though he overtook in the last lap.

Good drives from Lewis, Alonso, Ricciardo and Perez.

Loved the RBR team order, Vettel questioning it and Ricciardo passing him soon enough. Did Vettel intentionally yield the position or was he forced to take that line after he knew Ricciardo passed him?

It was interesting to see Kobayashi passing Vettel though he was 1 lap down. He was lapping closer to the pace of the midfielders with an additional pitstop and lesser pressure to conserve the tyres.

Overall a boring race otherwise, though I should say the predictability of this weekend has gifted me a handful of points in the fantasy leagues.

Originally Posted by SR71-Blackbird

Rosberg with his telemetry system not working and Massa with his disastrous pit stop seem to be a little unlucky today!

Considering the MAS-ALO and ROS-BOT incidents, all of them were lucky to complete lap 1, let alone the race. Massa probably had mixed fortunes but others were certainly lucky today!

It looked a little too aggressive from Massa. I think both Rosberg and Bottas got distracted by Massa's antics and were focusing on how to avoid Massa that they didn't probably see each other when they made contact.

[sourav9385]

Yawn! Quite a boring race.

At this rate, the Silver Arrows are looking at a dominant season. Until RBR or Ferrari bring the battle to them in the coming races.

Wonder what the heck happened to the Iceman.
Very surprising to see Alonso get a podium in a Ferrari, whereas Kimi had a pretty lonely run to an 8th place finish.
McLaren is probably wondering how to design a Formula 1 car for 2015, considering they've made bicycles for 2014.

RBR seems to be getting there, but not quite there yet.
Vettel and his luck with Aussie team mates, in my opinion, seems to be payback for all the team orders he defied last year.
Webber will be smiling though
Good run for Force India. 6th & 9th place finish from a mid-fielder team is a damn good result.

Very sad race for Massa.
Such a huge gamble early on and that pit stop tragedy brought him down to a poorly 15th place, whereas Bottas managed a nice 7th place finish, fighting the ever amazing Hulkenberg.
Good strong drive & comeback from Rosberg as well, even though he is not as quick as Lewis.

[Addy81]

Again a flawless drive by Lewis, good fightback by Nico to finish Second. good start by Massa but his race was ruined by the pitstop.

Driver of the day for me without any doubt is Alonso, nice to see him fighting it out and keeping 3rd position from from the Red bulls.

Not sure what is going on with Red bull, both drivers were quick and they could have let them race rather than giving team orders, Vettel is definitely struggling to keep pace with Daniel

hope to see upgrades working for other teams to get closer to Mercedes