Chinese Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Nico Rosberg took a deserved maiden win in dominant style at the Chinese Grand Prix. Starting from pole position, the young German drove without fault to claim a straightforward first victory for the Mercedes team in the modern era, the two McLaren cars of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton claiming the remaining podium positions in a frantic multi-car battle.

Rosberg began the weekend as he meant to go on, taking his first pole position by an impressive margin of half-a-second from Hamilton, who would begin the race from seventh on the grid due to a five-place penalty applied as a result of a gearbox change. The principal beneficiary of this was Rosberg’s teammate Michael Schumacher, who lined up in second, with Kamui Kobayashi for Sauber and Kimi Raikkonen for Lotus making up a surprise second row from Button and Webber’s Red Bull. Championship leader Alonso could do no better than ninth place for Ferrari, with the second Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel proving a surprise Q2 scalp as he qualified in a disappointing eleventh position.

At the start, both Mercedes cars made good getaways to hold first and second place, whilst Kobayashi was relatively slow off the mark, dropping to sixth behind a fast-starting Button, Raikkonen and Hamilton at the first corner as well as teammate Sergio Perez a few turns later. The Japanese wasn’t the only driver to make a poor start, Vettel dropping four places to sit a lowly fifteenth come the end of the first lap.

Rosberg wasted absolutely no time in stretching his legs at the head of the field, pulling away from teammate Schumacher at a rate of roughly half a second per lap initially. Button soon began to come under pressure from the chasing pack consisting of Raikkonen, Hamilton and Perez, whilst Webber, who was stuck behind the slower cars of Kobayashi and Alonso behind, took the decision to make an early switch from soft to medium compound tyres on lap 6. Vettel, likewise mired in fourteenth position having re-passed Pastor Maldonado’s Williams, took the plunge three laps later.

Of the front-runners, Raikkonen and Hamilton were the first to pit on lap 10, Hamilton edging past Raikkonen with some marginally faster pit-work from the McLaren mechanics as the two champions travelled down the pitlane side-by-side. Button made his stop one lap later, with Schumacher and Rosberg following suit in successive laps. Both of the McLarens used the soft tyre for their second stint, whilst the remainder of the front-runners all opted for the medium compound. After the first round of stops, Rosberg continued to lead from Schumacher, but fleetingly so as the latter was forced to retire from the race as it became apparent that his front-right wheel wasn’t properly attached to his Mercedes several corners after leaving the pits.

This promoted the McLarens of Button and Hamilton into second and third places, with Webber having made his way up to fourth courtesy of his early stop ahead of Raikkonen. The Finn then lost a further place at the second round of stops as Alonso chose the softer tyre for his third stint, allowing the Spaniard to undercut the man who he replaced at Ferrari. After their second stops, Button and Hamilton found themselves held up in traffic – Button had to make his way past Maldonado, Perez and Vettel, whilst Hamilton negotiated perennial sparring partner Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari and the Force India of Paul di Resta before losing time behind Perez, who soon had Webber and Alonso joining the queue behind the Mexican driver.

Webber shortly took the opportunity to equip a new set of medium tyres on lap 34; Hamilton and Alonso pitting for their fresh primes together four laps later than the Australian. The time lost behind Perez, who locked his tyres at the hairpin on a number of occasions as he strove to keep his rivals behind him, was evident as both re-joined the circuit behind Webber after their stops. Button in the meantime had closed the gap somewhat to race leader Rosberg prior to his final stop on lap 39 whereupon any hopes of challenging the Mercedes driver went up in smoke as  the McLaren mechanics struggled to attach the rear-left wheel, costing Button valuable seconds as he sat static in his pit-box. By the time the Brit finally emerged from the pit-lane, Rosberg’s lead was up to a virtually unassailable twenty seconds, the German having by now made his second and final stop.

After Massa’s second stop on lap 41, second place fell to Raikkonen, who having made his second stop on lap 28 seemed set to try and eke out his tyres until the end of the race. Massa’s relatively slow pace had caused a large train of cars to form in the wake of the Iceman, including Vettel and Romain Grosjean, who both adopted a like strategy having stopped on laps 31 and 32 respectively, Button, Webber, the Williams duo of Bruno Senna and Maldonado, Hamilton and Alonso. Hamilton was able to pass both of the Williams drivers without incident in separate moves at turn 6 as Grosjean began to fall down the order, being passed by Button on lap 40, and then Webber, Hamilton and Senna as a consequence of running wide at turn 7 on lap 45; the Frenchman also came perilously close to making contact with Maldonado as the pair battled for position for the rest of the lap.

Next to lose out in what was becoming a titanic tussle for second position was the other Lotus of Raikkonen, whose tyres by lap 48 appeared to be ‘falling off the cliff’. Vettel lucidly demonstrated this with a masterful pass around the outside at turn 7 to snatch second position (a move Alonso had failed to pull off whilst tussling with Maldonado several laps earlier, dropping him temporarily behind Perez as the recalcitrant Ferrari sailed wide), with Button taking the opportunity to follow the German into third position as Raikkonen ran wide on the exit of the corner. This in turn caused Webber to run wide in avoidance of the Lotus, allowing Hamilton to gain a position before he then was able to overtaking the floundering Raikkonen at the hairpin on the same lap.

Behind Rosberg, all this action meant the order had become Vettel, Button, Hamilton and Webber, who too had taken advantage of Raikkonen’s woes moments after Hamilton had done so. It was now Vettel’s turn to struggle from tyre wear, and Button was able to position his McLaren as to capitalise on the speed advantage offered by DRS on lap 51 to assume second position, albeit by now twenty-five seconds adrift of Rosberg. With three laps to go, Hamilton was able to power past Vettel into third place with the aid of DRS, whilst Webber found superior traction to his teammate at the exit of the hairpin on the penultimate lap of the race to seize fourth place.

There were no such challenges to Rosberg's position however, who drove serenely on towards his first ever grand prix win at his 111^th attempt, giving him the fifth most starts prior to a first win in F1 history after Webber (130), Rubens Barrichello (123), Jarno Trulli (119) and Button (113). Button duly took second position from Hamilton (who re-takes the championship lead by two points from his teammate), Webber and Vettel. Grosjean clawed his way back up to sixth place after his earlier travails ahead of Williams drivers Senna and Maldonado, with Alonso and Kobayashi completing the point-scorers as the latter used DRS to pass teammate Perez on lap 49.

Behind the two Sauber men were Paul di Resta, whose Force India appeared to be lacking in pace in comparison to Williams and Sauber; Massa who failed to recover much ground following his second stop, the beleaguered Raikkonen who continued to haemorrhage positions all the way to the chequered flag, and the second Force India of Nico Hulkenberg. Sixteenth was Jean-Eric Vergne, who was obliged to start his Toro Rosso in the pitlane as a result of the team breaking parc fermé conditions after qualifying, finishing ahead of teammate Daniel Ricciardo in spite of this setback. Vitaly Petrov was eighteenth place ahead of the Marussias of Timo Glock and Charles Pic, with HRT drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan along with Heikki Kovalainen bringing up the rear, the lattermost as a result of mechanical maladies suffered late in the race.

A first win had been a long time coming for Rosberg, and it was truly satisfying to see it being taken in such consummate style. Even had Button’s race not been compromised by a tardy second pit-stop, it was doubtful at best whether the man who took the title for the Brackley-based team in 2009 under its ‘Brawn GP’ guise would have had a genuine shot at victory. Either way, the almighty mêlée that ensued over the minor placings was a joy to watch, and a true testimony to the quality of the spectacle that tyre supplier Pirelli has created since its arrival at the beginning of last season. It would be a real fillip for the sport if, after all the furore surrounding the next event at Bahrain, it served up a race as fine as this one.