Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton drove an unbelievable race as he pipped Sebastian Vettel with four laps to go and denied the German champion his third consecutive win of the season. Vettel’s two stop strategy on the wearing Pirelli tyres backfired as he finally succumbed to Hamilton’s pressure and had to be content with a second place finish. Contrastingly Vettel’s Red Bull teammate had an outstanding race as he rose from eighteenth position to take the final podium position ahead of Jenson Button.
Vettel’s unusual error at the start from pole position gave Button the lead as the cars came out of the first corner. Vettel’s troubles were not over yet as he was soon over taken by the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton. Both Vettel and Button pitted on Lap 13 and an unforgivable error from Button cost him his spot and when Lewis Hamilton came out from the pits, he found himself in third place behind Rosberg and Vettel and ahead of his teammate Button. Nico Rosberg, who had pitted on Lap 12, was the race leader until he stopped again on Lap 25 as Vettel took control of the proceedings. Vettel, who was clearly opting for a two stop strategy, set a few fiery laps as the other cars began to go in for their second round of pit-stops before finally making his pit-stop on Lap 31 thus giving Felipe Massa the lead. Vettel came out in sixth place behind both the McLarens.
With the cars going in for their final pit-stops, Vettel regained the lead when Button and Rosberg pitted on Lap 38 and Lap 40 respectively. Rosberg came out behind the Ferrari of Massa but ahead of a charging Lewis Hamilton. It only took two laps for Hamilton to overtake Rosberg and on Lap 45, he took the second spot as he passed Massa. Meanwhile Button himself passed Rosberg to take the fourth spot but all eyes were on the other McLaren. A raging Hamilton was 3.7 seconds behind Vettel and was making quick ground on the defending champion and the gap was down to less than a second with six laps to go.
Meanwhile the other car making waves on the grid was none other than the Red Bull of Mark Webber. The Red Bull’s pace got the better of Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes and Alonso’s Ferrari as the Australian moved into sixth spot by the end of Lap 46 and was now stalking the duo of Rosberg and Button.
Vettel defended and hung on the lead as Hamilton attempted an overtaking maneouvre on Lap 50 but it was only a matter of time before the fresh tyres of Hamilton would overtake the German. Finally with four laps remaining, Hamilton’s brave move on a tight corner gave him the lead and assured him 25 Championship points. Jenson Button overtook Massa for the third spot but it was Mark Webber who was setting the pace behind him as he overtook Rosberg and Massa on Lap 54. He completed a remarkable race as he overtook Button on the penultimate lap to ensure that there would be two Red Bulls on the podium. Button had to be content with the fourth spot while Massa fell further behind to finish sixth behind Rosberg. Alonso finished seventh ahead of Michael Schumacher while Vitaly Petrov and Kamui Kobayashi took the final scoring slots. Force India’ Paula di Resta missed out scoring for the first time in his career as he finished eleventh ahead of Nick Heidfeld while the other Force India of Adrian Sutil finished fifteenth.
The victory moved Hamilton to second in the standings with 47 points while Vettel moved to 68 points. Button moved down to third with 38 points slightly ahead of Webber’s 37. Red Bull still lead the constructor’s Championship with 105 points as the drivers and their cars move towards Europe for the Turkish Grand Prix in two weeks time.
Tags: Chinese Grand Prix, ebastian Vettel, F1, Formula One, Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull
