Chinese Grand Prix (2014): RESULT

Sun, 20 Apr 2014

Qualifying for the 2014 China Grand Prix yesterday saw a much more level playing field than we’ve seen so far this year thanks to a rain-soaked track. But that didn’t stop Lewis Hamilton taking an easy pole (although the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel squeezed Nico Rosberg in to fourth place) and, true to current form, Hamilton flew away to win the Chinese Grand Prix and Nico Rosberg, after dropping to sixth place after a poor start, fought back to make this another Mercedes one-two.

Hamilton’s drive was a crushing one – he pulled away strongly from the start and cruised to the win – but it was livelier behind.

Rosberg had a nudge with Williams’ Botas at the start but passed Massa’s Williams by lap four, took Ricciardo on the first pit stop and Vettel on lap 22 leaving just Alonso between him and Hamilton.

Alonso managed to jump to third place on the start, chased after Vettel and managed to take him on the first pit stop, but it took until the final stages of the race for Rosberg to use the Mercedes superior power to take second place, but Alonso managed to keep third spot to the end giving Ferrari their first podium of the season.

The Red Bulls had a tougher time, with Vettel ignoring team orders to let the quicker Ricciardo pass, but Ricciardo did the pass for real a few laps later and pulled away strongly from the current world champion to finish in fourth place, 20 seconds ahead of Vettel who took fifth ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India.

Bottas took seventh for Williams, Raikkonen eighth for Ferrari, Sergio Perez managed ninth for Force India and Daniil Kvyat managed tenth to grab a point for Toro Rosso.

It was another crushing result for Mercedes – and a poor showing for the Mercedes-powered McLarens, with Button 11th and Magnussen 13th – and nothing seems likely to stop Mercedes’ runaway results in the foreseeable future.

By Cars UK