Hamilton Stops Vettel Dominance - China Report

Lewis Hamilton put all thoughts of last weekend behind him to take the victory at Shanghai, in a thrilling race.

Sebastian Vettel came second despite having tyre problems at the end hence Hamilton ovetaking him with 4 laps to go.

Jenson Button drives into the Red Bull Pit Box.

Mark Webber stormed to come home 3rd, a great result and drive considering he started 18th and had a poor first stint on the Prime tyres, but had 3 fresh sets of options which enabled him to come to the leaders towards the end of the race.

Jenson Button finished 4th as he made a terrible error when coming in for his first stop ahead of Sebastian Vettel but he came into the wrong pitbox as he stopped at the Red Bull box.This lead to Sebastian getting ahead and taking the position onto the track

Nico Rosberg came 5th,Felipe Massa came 6th the pair of them with solid drives and both of them at one point on course for a podium finish.

Fernando Alonso came home a frustrated 7th as his Ferrari just lacked pace. He also had DRS problems as his DRS opened when he was trying to get past Michael Schumacher.It was in a Non DRS Zone and it luckily closed a moment later.

Lewis and McLaren celebrate the victory in Shanghai

Michael Schumacher crossed the line right behind Fernando in 8th place.

Vitaly Petrov put aside his horrible qualifying and came 9th for Renault and Kobayashi for Sauber closed off the points positions with a solid 10th place.

Full Race Results:

Pos  Driver        Team                       Time
 1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           1h36:58.226
 2.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +     5.198
 3.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +     7.555
 4.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +    10.000
 5.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +    13.448
 6.  Massa         Ferrari                    +    15.840
 7.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +    30.622
 8.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +    31.206
 9.  Petrov        Renault                    +    57.404
10.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +  1:03.273
11.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +  1:08.757
12.  Heidfeld      Renault                    +  1:12.739
13.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +  1:30.189
14.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:30.671
15.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap
16.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault              +     1 lap
17.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
18.  Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth          +     1 lap
19.  Trulli        Lotus-Renault              +     1 lap
20.  D'Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +    2 laps
21.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +    2 laps
22.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth               +    2 laps
23.  Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth               +    2 laps

Fastest lap: Webber, 1:38.993

World Championship standings, round 3:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Vettel        68        1.  Red Bull-Renault          105
 2.  Hamilton      47        2.  McLaren-Mercedes           85
 3.  Button        38        3.  Ferrari                    50
 4.  Webber        37        4.  Renault                    32
 5.  Alonso        26        5.  Mercedes                   16
 6.  Massa         24        6.  Sauber-Ferrari              7
 7.  Petrov        17        7.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          4
 8.  Heidfeld      15        8.  Force India-Mercedes        4
 9.  Rosberg       10       
10.  Kobayashi      7       
11.  Schumacher     6       
12.  Buemi          4       
13.  Di Resta       2       
14.  Sutil          2       

Race Highlights:

The teams will have a three week break before they start their engines again in

the Turkish Grand Prix.

Qualifying Report - China

Sebastian Vettel took Pole Position for the Chinese Grand Prix tomorrow.

The Red Bull driver set an unbeatable time of a 1:33:706, while his teammate, Mark Webber, was knocked out of Q1 due to lack of pace on the hard tyre and a Kers Issue.He will start 18th tomorrow

The British Pair of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were 2nd and 3rd respectively, Jenson having the upper hand on Lewis in China this weekend, although Lewis only had one run to save a set of Option Tyres for the race.

Full Qualification Results

 Pos Driver Team Time Gap

1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m33.706s
 2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m34.421s  + 0.715
 3.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m34.463s  + 0.757
 4.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m34.670s  + 0.964
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m35.119s  + 1.413
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m35.145s  + 1.439
 7.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m36.158s  + 2.452
 8.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m36.190s  + 2.484
 9.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m36.203s  + 2.497
10.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              No time
Q3 cut-off time: 1m35.858s                                   Gap **
11.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes 1m35.874s  + 1.388
12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.053s  + 1.567
13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.236s  + 1.750
14.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m36.457s  + 1.971
15.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m36.465s  + 1.979
16.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault              1m36.611s  + 2.125
17.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m36.956s  + 2.470
Q3 cut-off time: 1m36.147s                                    Gap *
18. Mark Webber            Red Bull-Renault     1m36.468s  + 1.196
19. Heikki Kovalainen      Lotus-Renault        1m37.894s  + 2.622
20. Jarno Trulli           Lotus-Renault        1m38.318s  + 3.046
21. Jerome D'Ambrosio      Virgin-Cosworth      1m39.119s  + 3.847
22. Timo Glock             Virgin-Cosworth      1m39.708s  + 4.436
23. Tonio Liuzzi           HRT-Cosworth         1m40.212s  + 4.940
24. Narain Karthikeyan     HRT-Cosworth         1m40.445s  + 5.173

107% time: 1m41.941s

* Gap to quickest in Q1

** Gap to quickest in Q2

Free Practice One Report - China

Practice got underway in Shanghai and it saw familiar faces leading the way.

Sebastian Vettel was fastest in practice half a second faster than teammate Mark Webber who was about 1.5 secs quicker than Lewis Hamilton.

Jenson Button was fourth, while Heidfeld came 5th even though he had a crash which damaged his front wing which forced him to miss the last 25 mins of the session.

 The Ferraris came 7th(Felipe) and 12th(Fernando).

Pastor Maldonado had a spin which put him 8th.

Full Free Practice One Results

1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m38.739s  23
 2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m39.354s   + 0.615   27
 3.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m40.845s   + 2.106   21
 4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m40.940s   + 2.201   22
 5.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault                1m40.987s   + 2.248   5
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m41.046s   + 2.307   25
 7.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m41.189s   + 2.450   20
 8.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth      1m41.222s   + 2.483   20
 9.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault                1m41.231s   + 2.492   16
10.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m41.328s   + 2.589   21
11.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m41.361s   + 2.622   23
12.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m41.434s   + 2.695   15
13.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m41.494s   + 2.755   20
14.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault          1m41.579s   + 2.840   13
15.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m41.610s   + 2.871   18
16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m41.752s   + 3.013   20
17.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1m41.939s   + 3.200   25
18.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m42.301s   + 3.562   23
19.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m43.792s   + 5.053   20
20.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth        1m44.089s   + 5.350   20
21.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth           1m44.359s   + 5.620   18
22.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth        1m44.438s   + 5.699   11
23.  Luiz Razia            Lotus-Renault          1m44.542s   + 5.803    9
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m45.019s   + 6.280   23

The Teams will be back on track at 7 am.

China Preview

Rain???
Tyre Degradation rates????
Red Bull vs McLaren?????

All of these questions will be answered throughout the weekend but first here is my round up of the Top Teams News and the Headlines:

McLaren:
Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are looking ahead and confident about their chances of taking on Red Bull in Shanghai."When someone makes a start like Sebastian its tricky to beat them until they make a mistake" Jenson said.

"I for sure want to bounce back after a disappointing weekend and fight for the victory" Lewis said to the Media.

Red Bull:
Still reluctant to use Kers, Design Guru Adrian Newey has said they might not use it at ALL in Shanghai as they are struggling to come to grips with the system.

This would not put them in a good situation as their rivals have good Kers and Shanghai has the longest straight on the calender.

Also Christian Horner has backed Mark Webber to fight back with an even better result in Shanghai."I have no doubts that Mark will improve and his time will come this season very soon"

Ferrari:
Ferrari Bosses have spent the 4 days since the race in Sepang thinking about their pace and how they are going to improve it.They plan to bring updates that will help them bring a few tenths of a second in performance into the car.

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso will have to be on their best behaviour as the same steward will be on the panel at China.

This follows as they were both given 20 second time penalties after Alonso caused "an avoidable collision" and Lewis "Moved more than once when defending his position".

As for the tyres the same compounds will be used in China as they were in Malaysia.The hard and the soft tyre will be available to the teams this weekend.

Lewis and Jenson in Shanghai getting ready for Practice tomorrow.

Mclaren will be looking to fight with Red Bull for the victory this weekend even closer as they bring a few updates to try and get them even closer to the pace of Red Bull.

Finally for the weather watch rain is predicted for Free Practice 1 and 2 and for Qualifying, but it looks clear for the race on Sunday.But don`t be surprised if it does rain in the race as since 2006 all the races have had some rain except for 2008.

I will be back tomorrow for my Free Practice Report.