Chinese Grand Prix Review

Shanghai has traditionally been a strong circuit for Red Bull and Toro Rosso. Red Bulls finished 5th and 9th in 2005, and Toro Rossos came 4th and 6th with a Red Bull in 8th in 2007. But, going by the RB5's raw speed in Q2, and its pace in the wet, Red Bull was the class of the field here in 2009. And that without a double-decker diffuser, to the political inconvenience of others. Yes, reliability issues remain, but added to their pace in Australia and Malaysia as well, and the team are surely real contenders this year.

Vettel is fast becoming the best thing in F1 since sliced bread. Speed and talent is one thing - take his blistering laps in Q2 and Q3 - but coolness under pressure is quite another. Those qualifying laps were do-or-die last-minute runs, and in the horrendously wet conditions on Sunday when everyone was aquaplaning, he did not put a foot wrong. It's always dangerous to compare anyone to Michael Schumacher, but Vettel is showing all the signs of being his heir - and he has an infinitely more affable character to boot!

As good as 2nd place was for him, how typical of Webber's luck it is that, as he gets his hands on the best car he has driven since the first third of 2005, he is teamed up with the new Wunderkind. Having kept up with Vettel in the first stint, Webber's realistic chances of the win ended in the second when stuck behind Jenson Button after the Brawn driver gained an advantage pitting under the safety car. Webber also needed to pass Button twice, after running wide at the last corner after getting past the first time.

His final pass on the Englishman around the outside of turn 7 was sheer brilliance, but by then Vettel had skipped too far ahead. Mark also made more errors during the race than Sebastian did, and despite Webber being a renowned qualifying specialist, Vettel has had the edge in that department as well. Other teams are going to catch up whilst Red Bull delay in introducing their own double-decker diffuser, and so that elusive first victory for Mark might still be who-knows-how-far away.

Barrichello ended up setting the fastest lap of the race, but yet again it was Button to the fore. The opening races have been the ones where Brawn have had to capitalise, because the likes of McLaren and Fernando Alonso with interim double-decker diffusers in Shanghai have shown that the competition are able to catch up soon, whilst question marks remain over Brawn's ability to keep up development throughout the year. And it's Jenson who has done the better job of setting up a championship-challenging platform.

McLaren finished 5th and 6th in a welcome morale boost after their troubled beginning to the season, but Lewis Hamilton only just made Q3 and Heikki Kovalainen missed out again, despite their interim diffuser giving a definite boost. But there remains something inherently wrong with the MP4-24. Despite being one of the other rain-masters in the field, Hamilton had a topsy-turvy race, making mincemeat of Jarno Trulli and Kimi Raikkonen early on, but also making several crucial errors that lost him positions.

In the end it was Kovalainen who finished ahead, opening his 2009 account after an understatedly superb drive to quieten his critics, having not got past the first lap in either of the two previous races. The Finn probably went into the off-season hoping to mount a genuine title challenge in 2009, but with that now looking unlikely, his best bet is to keep up with Hamilton in qualifying and occasionally outrace him like he did here, and his stocks will rise nevertheless.

Wet races being a great equaliser, two other drivers came spectacularly to the fore. The first was Sebastien Buemi, who continued his eyebrow-raising start to his F1 career by getting into Q3, and then by moving as high as 4th in the first stint. His race got derailed somewhat after he hit Vettel who was confused by the limping Trulli, in shades of Fuji 2007 with Vettel going from assailant to victim, but eventually the Swiss rookie recovered to join the late-race dice for the lower points, finishing 8th.

The other driver who shone in the conditions, not unexpectedly, was Adrian Sutil in the Force India. From the back of the pack, he made stops during both safety car periods, with the aim of running a long 30-lap stint to the flag. The tactic almost paid dividends as Sutil climbed through the field when others made second stops, running 5th and holding off the McLarens before his worn wets couldn't deal with a pool of water and Adrian was sent head-first into the barriers.

This was his second heartbreak after Monaco last year. He must be destined not to collect a good result, especially with the Force India now clearly at the back of the field, again. Unlike Monaco though, this time there was no one else involved, but in the conditions it's hard to criticise the German. Much easier to comment on Giancarlo Fisichella, who was left in the spray once again. What exactly was his contribution to the cause? No wonder the rumours circle about Vitantonio Liuzzi replacing him.

Toyota and Williams will be concerned that they have not taken more advantage from the first three races and that others might soon catch up as they introduce their own double-decker diffusers. Trulli was so slow in the rain he was proving hazardous to others, and in particular Robert Kubica. It is arguable that he should have been penalised for touring around for a lap with a badly-damaged car. Visibility was hard enough without having an ailing car on the racing line.

Timo Glock, meanwhile, continued his good race form, coming from 19th on the grid to finish 7th, but only qualifying 14th when a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change beckoned wasn't too clever. Neither was his early collision with Nick Heidfeld. Of the three current double-decker diffuser teams, Toyota has the best financial resources to keep up the development. It will be interesting to see if they can have the technical know-how to do so as well.

Here, his race was compromised towards the end by a mistaken gamble to try intermediates when a dryer line seemed to be appearing, but in actual fact his race was already shot by the decision to pit during the opening safety car period under which the race began. On paper it was a nice idea to get a stop out of the way early, but the atrocious visibility at the back and the resulting field-spread quickly negated any advantage that that may have had.

An early stop behind the safety car also did for Alonso's race after he qualified 2nd for Renault, admittedly on such a low fuel load that it was almost amusing. It was nevertheless a promising sign for the team that even an interim new aero package could work such wonders on the R29. Although the attention at Renault in the lead-up to the race were the crybaby comments of Flavio Briatore who decided to mouth off at all things Brawn, making an idiot of himself in the process.

Come qualifying and race day, Nelson Piquet Jr managed to do the same on the track as well, with his multitude of spins and off-track excursions on Sunday having failed to make the Q1 cut for the third time in a row. Flav appears to rather like Nelsinho at the moment because he is so mediocre that the team can focus their recovery efforts on Alonso, and that says it all. For three spins during the race, two destroyed nosecones, and one obliterated 50-metre board, Nelsinho takes out 'Reject of the Race' this time.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Nelson Piquet, Jr.
Three spins, three nosecones

Maranello appears to be midfield at best at the moment, but the car is not entirely reliable and the team is scrambling strategically. Stefano Domenicali has even suggested that the team may give up on 2009 and concentrate on 2010 instead, if fortunes don't significantly improve by the start of the European leg of the season. How the mighty are fallen! We said in our season preview that the regulation changes would prove a big test for Ferrari, and it is a test that on all counts they are currently failing.

At least Ferrari have the excuse of saying that they concentrated so much on their 2008 championship challenge that they haven't expended enough resources on 2009. The same cannot be said for BMW, which gave up on Kubica's title bid to focus on 2009 in what is now turning out to be a disastrous decision in hindsight, as their 2008 petered out and the F1.09 is looking like a damp squib. A bit like Ferrari, they are stumbling around trying to catch up from a midfield starting point.

That was best exemplified by Kubica's KERS experiment on Friday, which was so unpromising that the system was taken off come Saturday, but by then a day had been wasted and the Pole only qualified 18th before smashing into Trulli in the race but somehow managing to continue. After his early incident with Glock, Heidfeld was put on a huge 36-lap stint to the flag. But like Sutil his tyres could not hang on and, although at one stage in the points, he got swamped by Glock, Buemi and others in the closing laps.