Grand Prix 2012 Chinese Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Racking up the air miles now

Going into the third race of the 2012 season and it is still unclear where everyone lies in true race pace over a normal dry race without the intervention of a safety car apart from that McLaren have done the best job of the teams with Red Bull and Mercedes not too far apart but Mercedes seem to be struggling with higher levels of tyre degradation compared to the other front runners.

Despite all the highly publicised problems at Ferrari, Fernando Alonso currently leads the Championship after a 5th place in Australia and an against the odds victory in Malaysia where the rain early on managed to put Alonso in the lead when the others struggled. However this doesn't mean things are rosy in Maranello as when the track dried up Alonso started to fall back and was being hunted down by none other than Sergio Perez in the Sauber who was closing in rapidly on the Spaniard only to make a minor mistake with a couple of laps to go which ruined his chances of a maiden victory, but he was understandably delighted to finish in second place. Lewis Hamilton showed that he is a more rounded driver than he was in 2011 with a second consecutive third place showing he has the maturity to make the best of a bad job when circumstances were against him when he was caught out by the pit stops (like he was in Australia) to not make any mistakes and bring the car home in third place for 15 points which could be crucial at the end of the season.

On the other hand, team mate Jenson Button had a characteristically poor race after running second early on, but after outbraking himself he broke his front wing trying to overtake an HRT who was running there on position after an early gamble for wets paid off as when the red flag fell, Narain was running in 10th place which shocked fans worldwide. The red flag was also (im)famous for the introduction of gazebos all down the grid, something previously pioneered by Mercedes in Canada last season.

2012 has seen (so far) probably one of the most competitive midfields in many seasons with Force India, Sauber, Williams and Toro Rosso all pushing the top teams for points and Sauber have already claimed a podium through Perez and it could be said that on pure one lap pace, most of these teams are as quick as if not faster than Ferrari, certainly faster than Felipe Massa who is really coming under pressure for his seat after 2 mediocre performances so far while Alonso continued to drag the car to places where it shouldn't really be.

Looking ahead to China and it has been a track which has favoured McLaren in recent years with Lewis Hamilton winning in 2008 and 2011 and Jenson Button winning in the rain affected 2010 race. Hamilton should have won in 2007 but famously threw it away in the pitlane after running wide on very used tyres when he was in a position to win the Championship, something with now Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen took advantage of to win the race and eventually steal the Championship in Brazil.

China will also be an importunity to be the first true comparison of Sky and BBC as it is the first race that will be shown live on BBC and it will certainly be very interesting to see where the two broadcasters shape up over a full race weekend and it will show to people in their own minds which one is better and it is pretty clear that it certainly won't be a clear cut thing and will be down more to personal preference than the overall package compared to the other.

For Galahad's brilliant circuit write up, see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/shanghai-international-circuit/
 
I'm confused. Haven't ALL of the drivers set their cars up for race trim?

The last time I bothered to check, all of the cars are put in Parc Ferme after qualifying and no changes are allowed. If a car is set up to do only one or two super-quick qualifying laps at the detriment to their race performance, I would think that they would go backward at warp speed, making their qualifying perfomance irrelevant, and probably annoying sponsors to no end. I would see no value to such an arrangement. Has this rule been changed?

No the rules have not been changed. Hamilton simply said that he set his car up for the race, indicating that he has concentrated his set up to focus more on the race than he usually would. Here's the link to the video where he says it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/17712592
 
Fantastic drive from Rosberg, he could be one a real contender for the WC as early as this year

more wins coming now I'm sure, happy for Brawn and co

Norbert Nico and Lewis looked very comfortable and familiar with each other on podium
 
Not the best race but a great result for F1. Should mean we see a Mercedes factory team in F1 for a few more seasons. Well done Nico - driver of the weekend without a doubt.
 
Not the best race. :o I thought it was absolutely fascinating. Best race of the season so far for me. It was slow burner and it was good for a different reason to usual race. It was like F1 pre-DRS with the trains of cars, but there was loads of overtaking. It just took some time for drivers to get by. I think this is one of the good things with DRS. The fact it doesn't work the same in every race, means that all races seem very different. Where previously the undercut was good by pitting first, today the key was not finding yourself in traffic, because you couldn't get by. Also the multiple pit stops have made the different strategies fascinating. 2 and 3 stops both worked and didn't work for different teams.
 
The second half of the race was a lot more exciting than the first when 8 cars were separated by a few seconds, only disappointment is that Rosberg was 20 seconds down the road because it really would have been a classic if he was with the other cars.
 
lewis dint weave,he made one move. Initially moving left on the racing line, he then moves right to defend.
so hopefully he wont be punished.but well done to rosberg,thoroughly deserved.
bring on the next one,glad its next week rather than in 3 weeks.

I thought they changed the weaving rule to say once you move back on to the racing line you can't then defend

I am sure Lewis will be penalised to set a precedent
 
I nearly fell asleep in the first half but the second half of the race was really exciting! Some really good action, Vettel's overtake on Kimi was pretty nice imo and Alonso battling with Maldonado was epic. Nico driver of the day, easily.
What happened to Kimi though? Were the tires just plain gone?
 
From a Mclaren point of view, they made mistakes with both drivers today costing them the fight for victory, but they were small mistakes that was magnified by the tight grand prix. Lewis was pitted too early in the first stop, which meant he had to move through about 4 more cars than Jenson who pitted later. Then, that pit stop for Jenson was 6 seconds longer than normal, but was enough to put him behind 4 cars he should not have been.
 
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