Chinese GP Review

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Miguel98
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Chinese GP Review

Post by Miguel98 »

The 2016 Chinese Grand Prix has become something of a modern classic, and the 2016 edition of the race served to dampen any criticism over Formula 1’s overall on-track product. After heady criticism from both fans and the majority of the F1 camp, the biggest news before the weekend was a return to the old qualifying system. Despite the best efforts of the FIA and FOM to introduce a hybrid version of the qualifying system, it was decided to return to the tried-and-tested knockout system, a cornerstone of the sport since 2006.

Despite the reservations of Bernie Ecclestone, stubborn to a fault, the return to the old format proved perfectly adept at providing a mixed grid, aided by a downpour which soaked the track on Saturday morning. The track was still damp at the start of Q1, and so some cars decided to play it safe, leaving the pits on the intermediate Pirellis. Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein elected to run the super soft tyre, which was ultimately his undoing. Accelerating down the main straight, the Manor drove over a bump which was concealing a puddle. Losing traction,the car snapped sideways and veered into the wall. Wehrlein’s qualifying was over. This produced the first red flag of the day, and on cue the Chinese marshals picked up from where they left off last year; they took a geological time period to remove the stricken Manor, perhaps angling to take home Reject of the Race for the second year in a row. Having eventually moved Wehrlein’s car off the grass, they continued to treat viewers across the world to their farcical attemtpes to clear the water from the main straight, to very little effect. When Q1 resumed, Lewis Hamilton was eliminated with an ERS failure. Having already received a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change, the defending world champion's weekend went from bad to worse and would start dead last come Sunday.

In Q2, Nico Rosberg took a risk to set his fastest time on the soft tyres, showcasing the effect on strategy that the new tyre rules introduced this season bring. Another red flag was thrown just 2 minutes shy of the session’s end, when Nico Hülkenberg’s left front tyre detached from his Force India. Despite this mishap, Hülkenberg had just recorded a lap good enough to put himself in Q3, ahead of the Williams of Felipe Massa. Hülkenberg wouldn’t be able to run in Q3 having had to stop his car on circuit, so only 9 cars would run in the final shootout. The 2015 Le Mans winner later received a three place grid penalty to add to his misery. Rosberg would ultimately take pole position ahead of an impressive Daniel Ricciardo and the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, who both ruined their laps with silly mistakes in the final sector.
As the lights went out, a great start from Daniel Ricciardo allowed him to dive into the lead of the race and hold off the overtures of Rosberg's far superior Mercedes. Unfortunately, the left rear tyre of his Red Bull delaminated entering the back straight, consigning the Australian to the rear of the field. Ricciardo rallied to 4th by the chequered flag, his third straight 4th place finish in 2016. This was also the third tyre failure sustained during the weekend; in FP1, Williams suffered a double tyre blowout, which the team blamed on the rear brake duct catching the inside wall of the tyre. In Ricciardo’s case, his tyre failure occurred thanks to debris on the track, most likely due to the mayhem that ensued in turn 1 of the first lap of the race.

In lap 1, a number of drivers became involved in tangles throughout the field, producing some fairly heated discussions between drivers post-race. Vettel battled Raikkonen for position into the turn 1-2-3 complex, and Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat seized the opportunity. Kvyat spotted a gap along the inside of turn one and placed his Red Bull accordingly, forcing Vettel to take evasive action, straight into the side of Raikkonen. Raikkonen lost his front wing as he veered off-track, exacerbating the situation on his re-entry to the circuit. Felipe Nasr was forced to take evasive action from Raikkonen, leaving Hamilton nowhere to go but into the back of the Sauber. Turning in for the next corner, the Mercedes ran wide and lost its front wing to the undertray of the car. The mayhem did not end there, as Romain Grosjean crashed into the back of Marcus Ericsson, also his front wing in the process. Three cars were left without a front wing by the end of lap 1, ensuring a hurried reassessment of strategies on the pitwalls. The safety car was deployed after Ricciardo's tyre failure, turning the race into one of strategy as teams were forced to contemplate the advantage of pitting. The teams that opted to do so pulled in, and contributed to further chaos.

Hülkenberg, having made a strong start to catch up to team-mate Sergio Perez, opted to slow the cars behind him on the pit entry to avoid double-stacking in the Force India pitbox. Sebastian Vettel, deciding not to wait, blasted past the coasting Hülkenberg and Carlos Sainz, managing to slow down in time for the pit limiter line. Hülkenberg's actions resulted in a bout of confusion for Sainz and Jenson Button, leading to some unsafe releases. For being the source of the chaos, Hülkenberg received a 5 second time penalty, which was rendered moot as he could only finish a lapped 16th.

Whilst the race up front was a leisurely Sunday drive for Rosberg, there were plenty of overtakes throughout the field. Ricciardo, after his initial problems, made hay to pass both Massa and Hamilton to finish in 4th place, whilst Raikkonen made similar progress to recover to 5th. Max Verstappen also made progress at the end of the grand prix, winding in Hamilton and Massa as well before the chequered flag. Massa put in a great defensive performance against Hamilton despite Williams’ foibles in race trim, unlike his team-mate Valtteri Bottas who wilted under pressure from the reigning champion. While Bottas is the most touted of the Williams drivers, Massa continues to be the one that steals the results when needed.

Haas had a completely different weekend compared to their first two outings of the season. While Esteban Gutierrez suffered again with reliability gremlins during the weekend, Romain Grosjean’s race was compromised from getting involved in the turn one fracas, and was forced to run with the team’s new front wing of which the car was not set up for. Their only notable moment all afternoon was Gutierrez and Grosjean each setting a fastest lap at the end of the race, having elected to do glory runs on the super-softs. It seems that the VF-16, despite apparently being kind to its tyres, perhaps struggles to work within certain conditions. The low temperatures at Sochi could also mean another weekend mired in the lower midfield for the North Carolina team, depending on any further progress.

Renault also disappointed greatly. The French squad suggested on the lead-up to the race that they would score points if bad luck didn’t come their way. Kevin Magnussen’s weekend was compromised with no dry running in practice, but once again managed to outperform his equipment. In the case of Jolyon Palmer, his race was one to forget. Finishing last in a race with no attrition was bad enough, but the only time Palmer appeared on screen was when he was lapped by Kvyat, and the Russian was not particularly happy with how the British driver conducted himself in blue-flag conditions. This was a particularly ironic situation, since twenty-two years previously his father Jonathan berated forum favourite Giovanni Lavaggi live on TV for being difficult to lap. Jolyon, in this instance, was desperately slow and getting in the way. Palmer did earn something from the weekend though: his first Reject of the Race award. Cherish it, Jolyon.

Problems continue to mount at Force India. Earlier in the week, an arrest warrant for Vijay Mallya was filed by the Indian authorities. This, coupled with the on track performances by the teams so far this year, suggests all is not well at Silverstone. So far, the team has shown good pace during qualifying but over a race distance, the car's race pace is lacking. After the chaotic race start, Hülkenberg and Pérez found themselves running 4th and 3rd respectively until the safety car was deployed. Once the the pitstop phase was complete, Hülkenberg dropped through the field struggling on the medium compound, later electing to go for a glory run on the super-softs. Pérez showed some pace, but his strategy dictated a late pitstop, which dropped him out of points contention. A second consecutive weekend for Force India without scoring points, a feat that coincidentally hasn’t happened since last year’s Malaysian and Chinese Grand Prix.

Toro Rosso continue to throw away good points through poor strategy. While Max Verstappen drove a fairly good race to score 7th place, Carlos Sainz Jr was not so lucky. Running as high as 4th at one point, Sainz was forced to pit and dropped to 12th place. The Spaniard recovered to 10th by the chequered flag, but he must be aware that if he didn't have bad luck, he would have no luck at all.

McLaren’s weekend can be summarised using Fernando Alonso's team radio at the end of Q2: “Lots of potential, gone to waste”. Back behind the wheel having sat on the sidelines for Bahrain, it was not the happiest return for the double world champion. There was glimpses of the potential of the car: Jenson Button was 4th fastest in Q1, and the car topped the speed traps during FP2. Even on race day the car was reasonably competitive for the first half of the race, but then couldn’t keep the car on the points paying positions. While Woking are improving, they are improving slowly. The McLaren boys will be hoping for more come the final races of the season.

Manor took advantage of the safety car period to get both cars into the points before the restart, 4th for Wehrlein and 9th for Haryanto. Whilst the Indonesian dropped back through the field immediately after the restart, Wehrlein once again highlighted his credentials by keeping himself in the top 10 as long as he could possibly hang on. Wehrlein eventually finished 18th, and Haryanto 21st. It is rumoured that Haryanto has not paid all of the money he promised to the team. Fortunately he can count on his large fanbase at home; the Indonesian government have created a scheme whereby texting a certain number, his fans can help Rio pay his way through Formula One in true reject fashion.

Sauber were present at China only through an advance payment from Marcus Ericsson's collection of Swedish sponsors. The C35 continues to be possibly the most ill-handling car on the grid, and both Ericsson and Nasr could be seen wrestling the car through the corners struggling for pace. Once again, Ericsson completely overshadowed his more highly-regarded team mate, with the Swede pulling a sensational lap in Q1 to move into the second qualifying session, where he out-qualified Nasr by 2 seconds. This would be as good as it would get for Hinwil this weekend, and questions about their survival even in the short term continue to bind around the paddock as Monisha Kaltenborn sets about finding a fix for their problems.



I've decided to post this here, since it's a) been two weeks since China pretty much, and Londoner and I had a dissertion and exams to focus, so we only got the first draft by Thursday. The draft wasn't deemed our best effort, so we fix it, and with the help to Ataxia, we got to this. Hope you enjoy it.
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.


18-07-2015: Forever in our hearts Jules.
25-08-2015: Forever in our hearts Justin.
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Bobby Doorknobs
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Re: Chinese GP Review

Post by Bobby Doorknobs »

Or even better: Leave it until after Russia and post a "Chussian GP" review :P
#FreeGonzo
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Miguel98
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Joined: 30 Mar 2014, 09:18
Location: Somewhere in Portugal

Re: Chinese GP Review

Post by Miguel98 »

Simtek wrote:Or even better: Leave it until after Russia and post a "Chussian GP" review :P


Chussian? That name :pantano:
Mario on Gutierrez after the Italian Grand Prix wrote:He's no longer just a bit of a tool, he's the entire tool set.


18-07-2015: Forever in our hearts Jules.
25-08-2015: Forever in our hearts Justin.
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Rob Dylan
Posts: 3477
Joined: 18 May 2014, 15:34
Location: Andy Warhol's basement

Re: Chinese GP Review

Post by Rob Dylan »

The 'Rhinese' GP, the 'Shanchi' GP, the 'Sohai' GP, etc.
Murray Walker at the 1997 Austrian Grand Prix wrote:The other [Stewart] driver, who nobody's been paying attention to, because he's disappointing, is Jan Magnussen.
Felipe Nasr - the least forgettable F1 driver!
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