2014 Chinese Grand Prix - Race Report: Hamilton dominates, ahead of Rosberg, Alonso

There were overcast skies for the start of the Chinese Grand Prix which led to speculation that there may be the possibility of rain showers during the race.

Off the start it was Hamilton who got a good start and retained the lead going through Turns 1 and 2, team-mate Rosberg dropped back to 5th whilst Alonso and Vettel made their way up to 2nd and 3rd respectively. Massa also got away well but suffered contact after being sandwiched between a Red Bull and Ferrari, the Brazilian did not have any lasting damage, however.

Further back in the field, Button overtook Vergne going into Turn 1 on Lap 3 which meant the Brit was up into 13th place after making a poor start from 12th on the grid. Magnussen, who had contact n the first lap, dropped back a position to 16th.

The gap between Alonso and Vettel stayed at around 1 second after Lap 7, however the Spaniard could not launch an attack on the Quadruple-World Champion as he was suffering from left front tyre graining. Meanwhile his countryman, Adrian Sutil retired his Sauber on the same lap due to a mechanical fault.

Lap 8 saw the first scheduled pitstop after Button pitted for a set of Medium compound tyres which dropped the former World Champion down in 20th, with McLaren deciding to run the Briton longer in order to get him in a points scoring position.

Grosjean also pitted for a set of Medium boots on Lap 10 which saw the Lotus team trying a similar strategy to McLaren. The same applied for Raikkonen and Massa who pitted on the same lap, but the Brazilian had a poor pit-stop due to the team having the wrong tyres prepared and then failing to get them on correctly which caused him to fall to the rear of the field.

Moments later Alonso pitted without trouble, as did Vettel a lap later. The Spaniard managed to leapfrog the German after setting a fast outlap which meant that they took 4th and 5th position respectively.

On Lap 14, Rosberg pitted from his inherited 2nd place and fell back to 7th. Two laps later, the Australian Ricciardo also made his first stop but had lost time due to tyre problems and fell to 5th behind Rosberg who had moved up following other pitstops.

It became apparent that Raikkonen was on a mission after a poor opening few laps, the Finn first got past Grosjean and then Magnussen and began to bridge the gap to Bottas in 8th.

On Lap 18, Hamilton made his first pitstop and retained his lead by 3 seconds as did Magnussen after dicing with Perez for 9th.

20 laps in and the Top 10 looked like this after all of the first pit-stops had been made: Hamilton, Alonso, Vettel, Rosberg, Ricciardo, Hulkenberg, bottas, Raikkinonen, Grosjean and Perez.

Rosberg began to close in on Vettel in 3rd place and eventually made a move into the hairpin after the back-straight. He succeeded in getting past his countryman, although Vettel fought back to no avail.

His team-mate, Ricciardo also shrunk the gap to Vettel and attempted to pass him into Turn 1 around the outside, the Australian proved unsuccessful although his tyres were 3 laps younger. The German then received a Team Order to allow his team-mate through as it became apparent that he was on a two-stop strategy, which was met with his disapproval. However, the smiling Australian then passed his team-mate this time up the inside into the first turn.

On Lap 29, Romain Grosjean who had lost 4th gear retired his Lotus after an off-track excursion, meaning that the Enstone-based team would not score any points for the 4th race in a row. Lap 31 saw Perez pitting for another set of Medium tyres, as Hulkenberg and Bottas did a lap later.

After 33 laps, Alonso made his second pit-stop again for another set of Medium compound tyres and resumed in 5th. Whilst Raikkonen moved past a Toro Rosso for 8th. Lap 35 saw Vettel pit and come out in 4th, allowing Alonso to take 4th.

It became apparent that Bottas for Williams and Rosberg for Mercedes were both suffering telemetry related problems, meaning the German had to regularly liaise with his team. He later pitted on Lap 38 and was followed in by Ricciardo, the pair emerged in 3rd and 4th. Team-mate Hamilton pitted for his second stop one lap later and retained his lead by 13 seconds.

Lap 42 saw Rosberg decreasing his gap to Alonso in 2nd place with the German consistently lapping 1 second quicker. The German made a move up the inside into the Turn 15 hairpin to which the Spaniard yielded to focus on increasing his gap to Ricciardo in 4th place.

The gap was around 4 seconds with both drivers running at similar pace, meaning it would be unlikely that Ricciardo would be able to make a move despite Alonso suffering from severe tyre degredation, causing him to lock and flat-spot his front left tyre.

The two Red Bull's were using the most fuel throughout the race of all the points scorers, Ricciardo and Vettel had used 95kg out of 100kg with a lap remaining.

It was Lewis Hamilton who crossed the line in First Place, some 19 seconds ahead of his Second Placed team-mate, Nico Rosberg. Alonso maintained his 3rd place ahead of Ricciardo in 4th. Vettel finished in 5th, Hulkenberg just finished ahead of Bottas in 6th, Raikkonen 8th, Perez 9th and Daniil Kvyat rounded out the points in 10th.

Our next coverage will be two weeks away on May 5th in Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix from Catalunya.

Tom Brooks
Chief UK Editor