2015 Chinese Grand Prix - Shanghai, April 10-12

[SectorOne]

I think the close gap to Ferrari on the soft compound was nothing more then an illusion created by Mercedes themselves.

[Edax]

Last year Rosberg was so competitive, so close to Hamilton. This year he seems consistenly(so far) about half a second slower. I don't get it at all. He's not even able to get a pole where last year he was ahead in this regard.

Could it be Hamilton taking more control of car development? Perhaps it is that Hamilton is just more vocal about it in the media, but I get the feeling that Hamilton has a better understanding of the car than Rosberg and is able to steer development more. He seems to have a very good idea what he expects from the car in every stage of a turn, braking, turn in rotation and accellerating out of it.

It is not a secret when he got to Mercedes he immediately set the engineers to work on braking performance, testing out disks, calipers, master cilinders etc. Same with turn-in and rotation.

Rosberg in that respect seems to be more adapting to the car than the other way around.

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

I think there could be some truth to what Rosberg is telling. Hamilton did a 1:42.xxx sometime very late in the stint after Rosberg pitted for his mediums. If he had that life in his tires then his earlier laps definitely didn't show it.

I didn't watch that part, what did Rosberg say?

Ferrari were close to Mercedes on the softs and Rosberg often at 1.6-2 second before Vettel. It is all fair and dandy asking Rosberg to overtake but with similar cars on the same tires, it is easier said than done.

If Rosberg was blabbing, Mercedes wouldn't have had to chirp in Hamilton's ears about wanting to up the speed. Something definitely cooking inside Mercedes paddock.

Hamilton needs to play his cards carefully, he might need Rosberg's help later in the season if Ferrari close in on them.

Hmm.. could you explain what you mean here? It sounds like you are saying Hamilton was backing up Rosberg into the Ferraris...???

Yes.. I think it could be true.. At this point of the race, Rosberg couldn't know if Ferrari were crusing like them or if they are at full speed.

Hopefully for him, Ferrari was at full speed.. But Rosberg was under the threat of undercut by Vettel, and i think it's the problem. He was under threat while he knew his car and Ham car could be much faster, without knowing if Ferrari could be that fast too.

[ChrisM40]

Rosberg needs to stop complaining. Lewis probably did sandbag a bit and push Rosberg into the Ferraris, but that's part of the game. He's sour because if he did the same thing Lewis would pass him, whereas he cant pass Lewis. He's a beaten man.

[Jonnycraig]

Well, the most interesting thing in this race so far has been the Ricciardo myth going pop even further =D>

More like Renault power plants going pop!

That's at least 4 in only 3 weekends! Dan was prolly driving with it turned down hoping to avoid yet another failure in his!

The engine caused him to botch the start, struggled to pass his teammate in the slower tyre and overcook several overtaking attempts?

Crikey, it really is an engine formula!

[djos]

Well, the most interesting thing in this race so far has been the Ricciardo myth going pop even further =D>

More like Renault power plants going pop!

That's at least 4 in only 3 weekends! Dan was prolly driving with it turned down hoping to avoid yet another failure in his!

The engine caused him to botch the start, struggled to pass his teammate in the slower tyre and overcook several overtaking attempts?

Crikey, it really is an engine formula!

Clearly he's having major car and pu issues this year, you only need to see comments from Alonso on Dan to see his fellow drivers rate him very highly.

http://m.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115080

He's driving fantastically, and in Germany he was battling very smart, always taking my slipstream after I passed him, and braking very late, attacking very late, and [he] never missed the corner.

"He was very, very smart, [with] respect also with the rules. It was a great fight."

[AnthonyG]

Rosberg needs to stop complaining. Lewis probably did sandbag a bit and push Rosberg into the Ferraris, but that's part of the game. He's sour because if he did the same thing Lewis would pass him, whereas he cant pass Lewis. He's a beaten man.

Yep.
And the fact he doesn't have a manly voice doesn't help him in getting "credit" from fans.

[evered7]

I think there could be some truth to what Rosberg is telling. Hamilton did a 1:42.xxx sometime very late in the stint after Rosberg pitted for his mediums. If he had that life in his tires then his earlier laps definitely didn't show it.

I didn't watch that part, what did Rosberg say?

Hmm.. could you explain what you mean here? It sounds like you are saying Hamilton was backing up Rosberg into the Ferraris...???

Rosberg He (Hamilton) compromised my race massively at the time because the best possible race for Lewis was to back me off into Vettel so that Vettel would try to undercut me with an early pit stop.

"Then I would have to cover him and then I would have such a long stint at the end of the race that I would be without a chance.

"That was very frustrating that Lewis was taking at easy as that on the tyres at the beginning of the stint. Interestingly, he said he was just thinking about himself and that says it all.

"What upsets me is that my race was massively compromised and we went through that scenario before the race."
"It was always very close with Sebastian Vettel coming out of the pits and that was completely unnecessary risk to put me in because we had a pace advantage over him.

"But we were taking it so easy in that stage of the race that he (Vettel) was right behind me, putting me under pressure and went to try to get me in the pit stops.

"It didn't compromise the team result but put unnecessary risk to the one-two and we went through that scenario before the race, which is frustrating.

"We'll have a discussion and see how it goes. I'll let you know."

[Edax]

Yes.. I think it could be true.. At this point of the race, Rosberg couldn't know if Ferrari were crusing like them or if they are at full speed.

Hopefully for him, Ferrari was at full speed.. But Rosberg was under the threat of undercut by Vettel, and i think it's the problem. He was under threat while he knew his car and Ham car could be much faster, without knowing if Ferrari could be that fast too.

Yeah but I wonder wether he really could. When Hamilton released him he quickly overcoocked his tires. In the last stint he also quickly got into tire issues with noone in sight.

I wonder whether he was not too optimistic about tire performance.

Perhaps Hamilton did him a favor by slowing him down, and not having him destroy his tires earlier

[iotar__]

5 seconds for Button-Maldo??? Another example of delay = cheating algorithm. It's not even a penalty. It's less than Hulkenberg got for Malaysia for three times worse incident. It was worse than Perez-Massa Canada and he got what, 5 places grid? Whiting should remove all the rules and replace it with: If we like someone like Jenson "I'm going to Charlie" Button we'll rule in his favour if we don't - against. I can't wait for lesser incident and bigger penalty because it will happen.

it's not anti Raikkonen or Vettel but what happened to Raikkonen's better race pace? I know FP means little but I expected at least some pressure. Of course he got Rosberg's strategy which didn't matter.

[evered7]

Hmm.. could you explain what you mean here? It sounds like you are saying Hamilton was backing up Rosberg into the Ferraris...???

Mercedes wouldn't want Ferrari into the equation. They would have liked it to resemble Australia where they ran a race of their own. Only this time Ferrari were directly behind and didn't go anywhere on the softs.

Hamilton was adjusting the gap such that Rosberg really didn't have a buffer to Vettel. Considering that a stint on medium was yet to be done, Rosberg wouldn't have been sure where he would end up since Ferrari were undercutting them at the pitstops. If Hamilton had driven to the required pace, Rosberg would have been to follow suit without having to follow him closely or fear the Ferrari's.

Things have gotten sour very early this season. I feel Rosberg might have something to say come end of the season if Ferrari are in with a chance.

[f1316]

I think we all know that Mercedes is still the faster car, so without excessive tyre wear, they're going to win a straight fight. But Ferrari are the clear second fastest and much more competitive than last year - this would always have been their aim for the first part of the season.

Where they have the advantage in terms of development is the additional three tokens, which could prove significant. Will Mercedes still hold much of theirs back til late in the season as originally suggested (in order to benefit next year)? Or, if not, will Ferrari have more later in the year? Of course, it all really depends on how well they use them.

And with rosberg, yes he's been outperformed so far, yes he's not reacting too well. But fact is he's not actually a beaten man; he's not really that far behind in the championship and he has plenty of opportunity to come back. He was (arguably - but let's try not to argue about it) the faster of the two in Bahrain last year, after Hamilton had had the advantage in first three races (pole in Melbourne remember) so let's see what happens there. One win and it all looks different.

[PlatinumZealot]

Rosberg needs to stop complaining. Lewis probably did sandbag a bit and push Rosberg into the Ferraris, but that's part of the game. He's sour because if he did the same thing Lewis would pass him, whereas he cant pass Lewis. He's a beaten man.

Oh that part. It was a bit funny because Hamilton did speed up as per Rosberg's request but Rosberg couldn't match the pace and still burnt out his tyres anyway.

I understand Rosberg's situation being sandwiched where you cannot judge your own pace somewhat, but he should have just attacked and be done with it. No point in saying Lewis was driving too slow for his tyres like it's some sort of tag team formation. I think Rosberg has lost the plot! lol

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

it's not anti Raikkonen or Vettel but what happened to Raikkonen's better race pace? I know FP means little but I expected at least some pressure. Of course he got Rosberg's strategy which didn't matter.

Did you watch the race ? Raikkonen was less than two seconds behind Vettel just before the SC.

The first stint cost Raikkonen a lot, the team pit him two or three laps after Vettel. It cost him badly. The two drivers were equal on race pace.

[Juzh]

Imo, vettel was faster on the soft, particularly in the last laps of 2nd stint (rai fell back to 4+s at that point), then RAI was faster on medium. So it evened out in the end almost exactly.