Grand Prix 2017 Chinese Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Welcome to Shanghai International Circuit. 5.451 Km long , 16 turns, 56 laps and a side order of communism. Just the second of our fly away's for our 14th visit to The Peoples Republic of China.

But first lets look at the season opener. The race in Australia was hopefully a good pointer for how the season will go, although it does throw up unusual results from time to time. From what we have seen it looks like the Mercedes and Ferrari are very evenly matched. The Red bulls aren’t too far behind Ferrari either.

Arguably Mercedes threw the win away with a poor strategy call in a very early stop that saw Hamilton come out behind Max in his Redbull. Seb in his Ferrari took full advantage and went longer on tyres to get the ‘over cut’. Cue the ‘finger’.

Daniel had a nightmare home grand prix and is after one race already a gear box and an engine down. Max done good and was worrying Kimi towards the end. Bottas had a decent first race for Mercedes. Kimi almost never turned up. Massa made Stroll look like a rookie in his first race weekend. But Giovinazzi was a class act considering how little warning he had that Pascal was still unable to race. I think we have a decent fight on for Williams, Haas and Force India in the midfield. Renualt, Sauber and McLaren trying to not be last. I despair when I think about McLaren, dead last and a DNF. How the mighty have fallen.

All in all, a slightly duller than average first race. The lack of overtaking in particular was rather telling. It looks bad for the rest of the season. The regulations have managed to make things worse in my opinion.

So on to China. Mercedes have won here the last 3 years, the long straight very much playing into their power advantage. In-fact a Mercedes powered car has won here 6 years out of the last 7 which is rather an ominious statistic if you are anyone but Ferrari.

Last years race scored a respectable 7.14 in the CTA out of ten ratings. Mostly due to Lewis and Seb having to battle through the field from the back. Fingers crossed we get a decent race this time as well.

Tyres for this race are supersofts, softs and the mediums. So one stoppers all round I would think.

I’m looking forward to this. Hopefully we will get some more overtakes this time out on a proper race circuit. And I hope some of Shanghai’s 34 million inhabitants help fill out the grandstands.

Here is the TV schedule. Another early one for us in the UK.

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Ideal Lap (sum best sectors) in the Qual:
Qual – No – Driver – Qual Result – Ideal Lap – Flaw
1 - 44 - L.HAMILTON - 01:31,678 - 01:31,678 - 00,000
2 - 5 - S.VETTEL - 01:31,864 - 01:31,809 - 00,055
3 - 77 - V.BOTTAS - 01:31,865 - 01:31,865 - 00,000
4 - 7 - K.RAIKKONEN - 01:32,140 - 01:32,012 - 00,128
5 - 3 - D.RICCIARDO - 01:33,033 - 01:32,911 - 00,122
6 - 19 - F.MASSA - 01:33,507 - 01:33,499 - 00,008
7 - 27 - N.HULKENBERG - 01:33,580 - 01:33,524 - 00,056
9 - 26 - D.KVYAT - 01:33,719 - 01:33,553 - 00,166
8 - 11 - S.PEREZ - 01:33,706 - 01:33,705 - 00,001
10 - 18 - L.STROLL - 01:34,220 - 01:33,930 - 00,290
 
Red Bull said they had bad handling problems, let's see how they get on at the coming races.
 
FB

How about the Ferrari now was potentially based on the ideals of James Allison before he was sacked and now he is at Mercedes.

When Adrian went from Williams to Mclaren in 1997. The Williams was clearly the fastest car but the gap disappeared from 2 seconds to basically nothing by the end of the season. Whereas the Mclaren under Newey who started late due to being forced on garden leave and therefore could not make an impact on 1997 Mclaren's design. It took until about mid season when Mclaren were probably the quickest car on the grid under Newey

So I think Ferrari have to make the most of what they have now until Allison fully unlocks the potential of the Mercedes which could become unbeatable by then
 
olegg
An interesting name on the top 10 ... Dani Kyvat who out qualified the highly rated Sainz again. It looks Dani has found pace of Carlos because the gap was constantly last year 0.3 to 0.5 seconds and now its dead level or slightly quicker

I think this should be watched closely especially as Sainz is probably the most coveted driver available aside from Alonso who has not got a contract tying him down
 
olegg
An interesting name on the top 10 ... Dani Kyvat who out qualified the highly rated Sainz again. It looks Dani has found pace of Carlos because the gap was constantly last year 0.3 to 0.5 seconds and now its dead level or slightly quicker
I think this should be watched closely especially as Sainz is probably the most coveted driver available aside from Alonso who has not got a contract tying him down

On the pre-season tests Sainz was constantly faster.
And I doubted that Daniil will find his pace.
I hope that today result isn't only technical problem on the Sainz car
 
olegg Dani is closer to Carlos than he was last year so part of that must be his head is in the right place


Everyone was marvelling at Alonso finishing 13th when the expectancy was that he would be near the back but that was more down to the other guys not having to abort their laps at the end of q1

But there is rain tomorrow so could be a lottery
 
olegg....Everyone was marvelling at Alonso finishing 13th when the expectancy was that he would be near the back but that was more down to the other guys not having to abort their laps at the end of q1....

Alonso was in 10th at the end of P1, there were not enough drivers slowed by the accident to push him out of Q2.
 
Strange to sum up qualifying now but with football national ant & dec ive been rather preoccupied

Lewis Hamilton knew it was a pole lap soon he finished he pulled a great lap at right time. But amazing 3.4 mile circuit & vettel bottas separated by 0.001s. Looking to tomorrow hopefully we have no farce like brazil & Verstappen has a brazil squeal
 
I await to stand corrected but everything I can find says that Hamilton bagged a Grand Chelem today. Pole, fastest lap, every lap led, win?
 
I await to stand corrected but everything I can find says that Hamilton bagged a Grand Chelem today. Pole, fastest lap, every lap led, win?
Yes.
It is 3rd for him

1 - CLARK Jim - 8
2 - ASCARI Alberto - 5
3 - SCHUMACHER Michael - 5
4 - STEWART Jackie - 4
5 - SENNA Ayrton - 4
6 - MANSELL Nigel - 4
7 - VETTEL Sebastian - 4
8 - PIQUET Nelson - 3
9 - HAMILTON Lewis - 3
 
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I quite enjoyed that grand prix. Some good action, great start, some nice tactical battles, great moves brundle was spot on when he says yes their is 100 overtakes less than 2016 but we had alot more 'memorable' overtakes loved the vettel & max overtakes. Im Optimstic that Cars finally able to follow without engineers saying drop back. Vettel & ferrari was very unlucky today because his race was stuffed by accident by the unfortunate Giovinazzi shunt because i think couldve won because think Vettel post VSC 17.8s behind lewis & if Giovinazzi hadnt completed the collection smashing into outside wall as well as inside wall then i think vettel wouldve been 5sec ahead of lewis

Lance Stroll made a better showing this time out, him & perez both at fault i feel, because when you go onboard with perez, stroll should looked in his mirrors & perez should be experienced enough not go 2 a breast into that corner espically in such tricky wet/dry conditions. Still believe that f1 needs a few changes reducing dirty air main one but we are on the right road with tyres that can follow but its long road
 
The most exciting thing for me so far is I think we'll see driver skill being a decider for both WDC and WCC.
 
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