Mercedes domination and Ferrari politics. Not much has changed in 1000 races.
Lewis Hamilton recovered from a tricky start to the weekend at the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix and ultimately took a comfortable win on what was Formula 1’s 1000th grand prix.
Coming into the weekend, most were expecting Ferrari to be on top. It was somewhat in the balance, with the top two teams having had superiority at one race each this year, but the track layout appeared to favour Ferrari. Particularly considering their straight line speed and the Shanghai International Circuit’s 1.2 km back straight. But it was the Mercedes team who seemed to have the edge throughout the weekend.
The Ferraris had two main problems. Firstly, they don’t seem to be able to release their full engine power consistently on a Sunday. Surely if that’s the case on a grey day in April, they are going to struggle at most races. And secondly, they were losing so much to Mercedes on the long, right-hand corner before the straight, that it didn’t matter anyway. There could be fundamental issues with this car.
Between the two drivers of the Silver Arrows, Valtteri Bottas had held a reasonably comfortable margin of around half a second over his world champion teammate through all the practice sessions. But then Lewis Hamilton did what Lewis Hamilton does. He pulled a bunch of speed from nowhere in qualifying to get within a few hundredths of the Finn’s pole time, then nailed the start and never looked back, sailing off into the distance to claim the honour of winning F1’s 1000th race. The Ferraris meanwhile were struggling – not only with speed but also decision-making…
Ferrari Team Orders: Round 3
That’s three team orders given out in the first three races…and not much to show for them. Charles Leclerc has remained magnanimous and toed the company line thus far, but has certainly given the impression that he has a backbone and won’t stand for this in the long run. In Australia, he dutifully stayed behind Sebastian Vettel in the closing stages despite clearly being faster. In Bahrain, he was asked to stay behind for two laps (for a reason I’m unsure of) but the pass presented itself too easily and he was gone. And now in China, he has been asked to move aside, before being sacrificed in an attempt to slow up Bottas.
At the time, the first part of that was pretty understandable – Vettel had been the quicker driver through the weekend and did appear to be stuck behind his teammate. But once freed, he didn’t get away…the Mercedes did. But the second part harked back to the days of Kimi Räikkönen being left on an incomprehensible strategy, purely to cost a Mercedes maybe a couple of tenths. Ferrari waited too long to order Vettel past and his tyres were already damaged from Leclerc’s dirty air, but it doesn’t look like they were ever going to challenge Mercedes this weekend. All they did was cost themselves a 4th place finish.
It could be argued that without these team orders Leclerc would be significantly closer to Hamilton in the title race than Vettel is even with their favouring of him. Either way, these team orders will only matter if Ferrari solve their car issues. And fast.
A Flying McLaren and a Flying Thai
McLaren came back down to earth with a bang here (quite literally in the case of Lando Norris) after their excellent result in Bahrain. They had said that they expected to struggle in Shanghai and so it proved to be with the drivers only managing to qualify 14th and 15th. And then came the torpedo. In fairness, Daniil Kvyat can count himself quite unlucky to receive that penalty. Whilst a little clumsy from the Russian, it looked the type of crash that would normally be filed under ‘first lap racing incident’. Norris was rejoining the track at a pretty sharp angle and left the other McLaren of Carlos Sainz nowhere to go. Add in a bit of understeer from Kvyat and you have an airborne teenager and three damaged cars. Norris did at least utilise the opportunity to continue his reign as F1’s Resident Memelord.
Meanwhile, his former GP2 rival, Alexander Albon, was not long out of the pit lane and possibly wondering if he was set for a tough race fighting his way into the midfield. You could wonder how a rookie would cope mentally with a big crash in Practice 3 that left him out of qualifying and starting from the pit lane. The answer, in this case, was ‘commendably’. The young Thai driver moved slowly but surely through the field and somehow found himself in the points, then impressively holding off Romain Grosjean’s Haas in the final few laps despite being on far older tyres. These are the kind of performances that could have him entering the frame for a future Red Bull drive. And one that could be not too far away considering Pierre Gasly’s current struggles…
An Underwhelming 1000th Grand Prix
The Grand Prix was fairly uneventful beyond the first few laps, but it was the event itself that particularly disappointed. It had been built up for a long time, with a countdown extending back to last season, but in the end it was something of a damp squib.
It’s a shame number 1000 ended up falling in China. The complexities of getting old champions and cars to Shanghai proved too much, so we were left with just Damon Hill driving his father’s Lotus 49B. It also doesn’t help that the country itself has little to no motorsport heritage. Just look at all the empty stands. The promoters claim it was sold out but that’s only due to them closing huge expanses of grandstand. This should have been a massive event. Race 1000 – that’s the milestone. But for all the build up, in reality it amounted to not much more than a few special helmets, some stickers on the cars and the champagne bottles being painted red.
The 1000th Grand Prix in 60 Seconds
Answering the Burning Questions
Will Charles Leclerc pick up where he left off after his stunning performance in Bahrain? Not quite. But it’s complicated…
With one dominant race each (in terms of pace anyway), who will come out on top between Mercedes and Ferrari this time? Mercedes, pretty comprehensively.
Can Pierre Gasly get his Red Bull closer to its probably rightful place in the top 6? Well, he did get into the top 6… And claimed the fastest lap. But realistically was still a long way shy of Max Verstappen’s pace.
What happened to Bottas 2.0? Will he reappear here? Inconclusive. Was it Lewis lacking early in the weekend or Bottas 2.0? Either way, we know who ended up with the win.
Who will have the best special one-off helmet design for the 1000th GP? For me, the retro simplicity of Daniel Ricciardo’s Brabham-inspired lid takes it.
