Lewis Hamilton has taken victory at today's Chinese Grand Prix, leading the race from start to finish while all the battling went on behind him. Sebastian Vettel finished a relatively close second with Verstappen completing the podium in third place.
Oh yeah it'll be very interesting to see in the wet as this track is already very low grip as it is. It doesn't get used much and the layout itself pushes traction to the limit with the heavy braking and tricky exits. The exit of turn 2 & 3 is annoyingly long, turn 5 & 6 has weird cambers, 9 & 10 the exits are difficult as well. Even the 11 & 12 turns it's hard to find the perfect time to get on the gas, really the whole lap is like that. In the rain power will work against you.
I doubt China is the best balance. It seems to be very easy to OT there almost as in Baku. Last year it was the record ever of more OT in a GP with 161
Last year Alonso was 3.4 seconds off pole in China a 1:38.826, pole being a 1:35.402, if the new car maintains the trend we saw in Melbourne, the best McLaren can hope to achieve is a 1:38.1 or .7 seconds faster than last year, just like their Melbourne qualifying. If they've made any progress whatsoever hopefully they can do better than being backmarkers.
I doubt China is the best balance. It seems to be very easy to OT there almost as in Baku. Last year it was the record ever of more OT in a GP with 161
That´s interesting didn´t know
Rai, Ham, Vet and Ric had to come trough the field. Some twice even, and that's massively contributed to the overtake tally. A similar scenario is highly unlikely to happen.
I'll take my chances and say that Mercedes will come on top of the fight in China.I'm even less sure whether is gonna be a 1-2.Bottas was great on Sunday in Australia, not so good in qualifying but mentally he's a strong fella so I think he will put an awful lot of pressure in Vettel all weekend.
Now for sure we don't know how these cars react to the new regulations but still I think Mercedes would have an advantage over Ferrari at low temperature.We hardly have any evidence by Australia because the culprit for Hamilton's issues could be a set-up gone wrong.I can easily recall Ham addressing the team for low grip since before the start of the race!Nor that temperature was that high, definitely higher that Practices or Quali but nowhere near critical level.
My sense is that Merc was slightly faster on softs,whereas on ultra Ferrari had the edge.And for that we shouldn't take into account Ham-Vet, but it would be more reliable to take Bot-Rai lap times and gap.
So,China is traditionally favoring Silvers, it must be Mercedes.Otherwise, Brackley is in deep,deep trouble.
Nowadays you couldn't even say who is good in the rain. These cars are so sensible that rain is not the leveller that is was in the 80s and 90s.
There are certain drivers who have (almost) always delivered when it rains. I am during different seasons and with very different cars. From 2017 until now drivers like Alonso, Lewis or Vettel have shown their skills I guess they are actually good.