I won’t comment here on the emerging debate as to whether F1 this year is too artificial. On that topic I have written a separate editorial article which I commend to you. Turning instead to review how the weekend panned out, especially for the leading runners, events in China confirmed the view expressed in the Malaysian GP review, namely that in 2011 teams really do need to take a long-term view of a race weekend, and work towards where they want to be in the final stint particularly in terms of tyre condition.

But along the way, what the Chinese GP weekend also demonstrated is that it’s dangerous for teams and drivers to just hold their aces. You do need to be on the front foot and seize the initiative at certain times; it’s just that you need to find the right amount of aggression, at just the right time. And that kind of controlled aggression in aiming for an end goal on Sunday afternoon is such a delicate balancing act, no one is going to get it right all the time. That will surely be part of the beauty of this season.

Hamilton and his side of the McLaren garage played their cards superbly from qualifying onwards. Much has been made of the decision for him to only do one run in Q3, thereby having a fresher set of options for the race. No doubt that played a part, but it was in the context of how they read the race and executed their tactics on Sunday. In hindsight, it started with the team not panicking about the fuel leak problem before the race, and managing to get Lewis out of the pit lane seconds before it closed.

At the start itself, Hamilton refused to be intimidated by Vettel moving across. That was key - having both McLarens in front of the Red Bull meant that Sebastian could not just control the race as he pleased. Then, as it has transpired post-race, things did not go entirely to script. Jenson Button missed his cue to pit and stayed out an extra lap. That obliged Lewis to stay out for a further tour as well, and in that time his tyres fell away and he was passed by both Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.

Hamilton pitted with Massa and so remained behind the Brazilian. He was in 5th. But no resignation; at this point, McLaren’s decision to switch both cars to a three-stop strategy was a perfect example of seizing the moment. They saw that Nico Rosberg, most likely three-stopping, was playing the role of hare and had put himself into contention. They saw that Vettel, almost certainly two-stopping, was now ahead of both McLarens and Massa likewise was spoiling Hamilton’s day.

They had to take the initiative to change their fortunes, and from here Hamilton responded. He firstly had to get himself to the front of the three-stoppers. That meant clearing his team-mate, and what a stunning move he put on Button into turn 1 - not a known passing spot at Shanghai, and without DRS assistance. Into the final stint, having cleared Rosberg who could not run his best fuel mixture, it was a matter of methodically hunting down and passing Massa and Vettel on wearing tyres.

That he did with assertiveness. The move on Vettel for the victory was also excellent, taking the opportunity when it presented and catching Sebastian off-guard into another unexpected passing spot. Apart from the flying Mark Webber, no one was faster in the final stint than Hamilton. It had been a terrific example of not getting flustered after the first stops, but working out a way to maximise the extra set of options available, and setting Lewis up for a strong final stint. Hamilton did the rest.

Button, on the other hand, having run a well-judged race in Malaysia, did not get the rhythm of the race right in China. Having started on the front row and got into the lead at the start, perhaps he thought the race was his to lose and mentally relaxed. If that was the case, that was fatal thinking because it means you have peaked too early; the truism that you have to be leading on the last lap, not the first, holds even more weight under this year’s regulations. You have to be focussing on the final stint.

It would certainly explain Jenson’s crucial error at the first stops when he pulled into the Red Bull box. He says that it was due to being distracted by adjusting a switch on his steering wheel, but that just indicates a lack of intensity. The job of wrapping up the race was nowhere near done. Button also says the error “didn’t really change my race at all”. Wrong again. It allowed Vettel ahead, and potentially Jenson’s mindset was on the back foot after that.

It showed when his team-mate closed up on him and passed him. Jenson did not defend the inside; he clearly wasn’t expecting the move. The fact that he had to jink out of the way when he finally realised Lewis was there reinforced that. And yet keeping Hamilton behind, as much as possible and within reason, was vital to Button’s race. From that point on, also bearing in mind that he was having more trouble with tyres than Hamilton, it was no surprise that he was no longer really a factor on his way to an eventual 4th.

On the F1 Rejects forum, there have been many nominations for "Reject of the Race" to go to someone who disappointed throughout the weekend as a whole. However on this occasion it is awarded to Button. Partly because I always prefer to reward a singular moment of madness where possible, and also because I think the botched first pit stop was indicative of the wrong mindset, and it put him behind the eight ball for the rest of the afternoon when the key in 2011 is to be building towards the final segment.

Red Bull may still have some major dramas with their KERS, but there was no reason to be overly unhappy about Vettel’s run of victories ending. The two-stop strategy proved to be wrong given that Sebastian had not led in the first stint in order to pull out a gap, and even then they were only four and a half laps away from making the strategy work. Plus, bearing in mind that Vettel’s first stop coincided with the McLarens and they actually switched tactics on the run, a two-stop plan was certainly not unfounded.

When you have a 0.7s advantage in qualifying, as Vettel did, you will still win as many as you lose even with the complications of this year’s race variables, so Sebastian’s still in the box seat. Webber unleashed the RB7’s pace in the latter half of the race, but of course the story on Saturday had been his shock Q1 elimination after a troubled free practice, a second run on primes rather than a lap on options, and how those primes had not been up to temperature and there had been no time for a second flying lap.

It had been a dreadful error, compounded by the fact that the top 17 were covered by less than 0.9s due to a combination of midfield runners on options and leading teams on primes. But given that Webber’s first lap had been somewhat sub-par, and since he had no KERS, this was not a time for caution and holding onto the options. It might have meant wasting a set in Q1 and only doing one run each in Q2 and Q3 and having no new sets for the race, but that was better than being kicked out in Q1 and starting 18th.

Webber joked after the race that perhaps it’s the way to go to drop out in qualifying and have lots of new sets of options for the race, and some may look at Mark’s stunning race and consider that as a viable option in the future. But one should not be fooled. Starting so far back is laden with risk, especially in a tight midfield. One inopportune chop from a rival necessitating a new nosecone will ruin your race. Hamilton showed that you can start near the front and still be creative and aggressive enough to win.

Having said that, Red Bull did play Webber’s race perfectly. Starting him on primes was exactly the right thing to do. For example, what if there was an early safety car? He could have got rid of the primes in effectively a free stop, and done the rest of the race as a two-stop, all on options. But even if there wasn’t, as was the case, as long as he survived the first stint, the key was getting him into clean air to use his speed on options, and for Mark to hold up his end of the bargain by making the passing moves as needed.

Again, this was about building up to the final stint. Anyone who says he should have started on options ignores this fundamental truth about 2011 strategy. As it was, both Red Bull and Webber did what they had to do all race. Once Mark had finally cleared the likes of Rubens Barrichello, Sergio Perez and Vitaly Petrov by mid-race, it was a matter of catching the front runners. Despite the moves on Massa, Rosberg and Button in the dying laps, arguably it was his pass on Michael Schumacher that was the best.

Despite the marbles on the inside, despite Schumi leaving the outside wide open, Mark sold Michael a dummy and dived down the inside into the hairpin anyway. It was superb stuff in an excellent race, which breathed a little life into his stillborn 2011 campaign. For the truth remains that he still finished behind Vettel, he is still harder on his tyres, the German is on another level right now, and he is bearing the brunt of Red Bull’s reliability issues. There’s no getting carried away about the immensity of the challenge before him.

Mercedes might be relieved that upgrades in China had brought them back into the mix after disappointing weekends in Australia and Malaysia, but they too did not manage qualifying and the race particularly well. Their decision to do their first Q2 run on primes when Vettel and the McLarens went out on options was particularly poor. The point of Q2 is to get through to Q3. There won’t be so much rubber laid down in the 15 minutes that it is important to do your best run last.

So there is merit in putting your best foot forward and setting a good time early. By not doing that, they were caught out when Petrov brought out red flags, and had to fight through the logjam of cars competing for a clear lap. Rosberg made it, Schumacher did not. Michael made up for it with a blistering start from 14th to 9th, but being at the tail of the frontrunners and on a three-stop strategy, without the kind of speed Webber had, it meant that mid-race he fell back amongst the midfield which cost him precious time.

Otherwise, Michael’s best lap all but matched Rosberg’s, so it would have been fascinating to see how he would have gone if he had had a clear race up front as Nico did. Rosberg was terrific in Q3 and his early first stop which vaulted him into the lead on fresh tyres caught everyone - including most observers - off guard. Having got there, Mercedes took the view that he needed to keep up the pace, which meant that in the final stint he could run his optimal fuel mixture.

This again was a example of peaking too early in the race - that is, not being able to control the aggression - and not having enough in reserve for the run to the flag, although in their case it was a question of fuel rather than tyres. Could they have wound down the engine mid-race without necessarily costing track position or lap time too much? In the final stint, Nico had the freshest tyres and started the stint as the first of the three-stoppers. In hindsight, this was a genuine opportunity for a surprise win.

Mercedes’ improvement left Ferrari as the last of the leading teams still struggling for pace, but yet again it’s just their qualifying pace that is some way off whereas their race speed is decent enough. Their issue on Sunday was being too conservative and not aggressive or daring enough, as had been the case in Australia. Although a two-stop strategy was only wrong in retrospect, Ferrari saw that McLaren and Mercedes were on three stops and chose not to respond in kind.

In Malaysia, Massa had finished ahead of Alonso but the Spaniard had had the better race. That was not the case here. Felipe put in his best effort in a very long time, and until he faded in the final stint from 2nd to 6th, he was making a two-stop tactic work almost as well as Vettel. Alonso, on the other hand, having lost out to Massa at the start and then found himself stuck behind Schumacher mid-race, was surprisingly languid, especially after he encountered more problems with his DRS.

Fernando’s really in points-collection mode until Ferrari sort out the one-lap low-fuel speed of the car, and presumably he’s drawing on his experience from last year to believe that he can do the rest if the car can be developed to match the best. That’s not altogether impressive. That is not to suggest that he could have had a better result in China; but when Massa, who has been beaten into submission at Ferrari over the last year or so, is made to look good, you sense Fernando’s only at 95%.

With all the excitement and strategic intrigue amongst the top four teams, not much attention was paid to the midfield where the standard strategy was for two stops, running primes in the last stint. But once more the theme was about finding the right balance between conservation and attack, and timing your trump cards for the chequered flag, and on reflection that was what decided a close battle between the Force Indias, the Saubers and the Renaults.

Paul di Resta was without doubt one of the stars of the weekend. He had scored points in Australia and Malaysia through solid race pace, but in China the Force Indias had unexpected qualifying speed as well, which was pleasing to see. Once more the rookie out-qualified Adrian Sutil and made Q3 to boot, and he was ahead of his experienced German team-mate all race as well, running 7th in the first stint and 9th in the last, but he faded in the closing laps on his primes and fell back to 11th.

Sutil stayed within range of di Resta all afternoon but was taken out of contention by Perez, who was on much fresher tyres in his Sauber. His two incidents with Nick Heidfeld and Sutil indicate that he still has some way to go to harness his aggression if he is going to be making late-race charges, because he was ahead of Petrov at the time and he could have finished 9th. He can learn from team-mate Kamui Kobayashi in that respect, as the Japanese driver finished in the top ten for the third race straight.

The Japanese driver ran a long third stint of 26 laps on primes. Clearly he is just as adept as Perez when it comes to maximising the Sauber’s ability to make its tyres last. He has also shown great maturity this year in playing the long game, knowing when to fight - and we know how good he is at that - but also when not to waste time defending unnecessarily. It’s that kind of clarity that put him in a position where he was on older tyres than di Resta towards the end, but still was able to get by for the final point.

However, it was not enough to stave off a rampaging Petrov, who only did 19 laps on his last set of primes. The Russian and his Renault team had made life trickier for themselves by pitting so late that he had to fight through from 13th to 9th in the closing stint. It may have worked here, but one wonders if they may have been better advised to not push quite so far on both sets of options, dropping track position each time to others who had pitted earlier and made time on fresher rubber.

After his sterling weekend in Malaysia, Heidfeld’s weekend in China was much messier. He didn’t set a time at all early in Q2, and so the same comments as for Mercedes apply here. What is the point of that strategy? Any red flag situation late in the session could knock you out, and it was ironic that here it was caused by his team-mate. Then in the race, a too-late first stop followed by a too-early second stop, plus KERS troubles of his own, meant he was never really in the hunt by the last stint.

Force India’s pace means that the midfield is more competitive than ever, because there’s also Toro Rosso to consider. Here’s another team that peaked too early. With clearly some very good speed in the STR6, they went all-out in qualifying and did superbly with Jaime Alguersuari recording a career best 7th on the grid and Sebastien Buemi in 9th, but it meant they had nothing left for the race, which was even more disastrous when both cars made poor starts.

Alguersuari had already dropped well out of the points when his botched first stop left him with three wheels on his wagon and made him the only DNF of the race. Buemi was down to 13th by the end of the first lap and, after an unscheduled nosecone change in an attempt to cure an understeer problem, spent the rest of the race running on primes when all his other rivals were on options. Yet again, qualifying is part of the race strategy, and Toro Rosso put all their eggs in the qualifying basket.

Williams continued their worst-ever start to a Grand Prix season with another uncompetitive outing. Barrichello was also on a two-stop strategy but he was always on the tail of the Renault-Force India-Sauber battle and was never likely to get into the points. Pastor Maldonado had an even worse fate, finishing behind the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen despite no drama throughout the race. But it had not really been a straight fight because the Venezuelan had been on a three-stop strategy.

Not that that necessarily excuses Williams’ miserable performance because a three-stop plan works if you have some speed that you can tap into. Maldonado did not, and never came close to building a full stop’s gap over Kovalainen. So Lotus probably can’t get too cock-a-hoop. Heikki was, by my calculations, about 25s behind Barrichello at the end, and here we’re comparing apples with apples in terms of strategy. That’s still a fair gap, but from where they were last year, it’s still a huge step forward.

Kovalainen continues his dominance over the increasingly-anonymous Jarno Trulli, who was out-qualified again and who does not appear to be gelling with the T128 as well as the Finn. Trulli seems to have more set-up issues, more problems with tyre wear, and also more reliability problems as well. Last year the intra-team battle at Lotus between two former front-running drivers was fascinating to follow. It’s been a no-contest so far this year, and you can’t help but wonder about where Jarno stands long-term in F1.

But so long as Lotus’ upward curve continues, the feelgood factor remains. That’s not the case with Virgin because there’s no upward curve at all. Along with Williams, Virgin have been forced into some early soul-searching after a very deflating start to the season. Jerome D’Ambrosio is giving his all, out-qualifying Timo Glock by almost 0.6s and finishing some 30s ahead of his team-mate, although Glock’s race was compromised by an ill-advised decision to convert to a three-stop strategy and a delayed final stop.

Still, when you factor in a delayed stop and Glock’s better pace on fresher tyres, when adjusted the Belgian would still have finished ahead. Timo’s motivation seems very low, and in an interview with Autosport, Virgin’s top brass seem quick to point the finger at the MVR-02’s designer Nick Wirth, whilst now also bringing in Pat Symonds as a consultant. They say a massive upgrade for Turkey should do the trick, and you’d hope so because otherwise they look like a team in headless chicken mode.

Plus on current form, Hispania remains a threat to them as they continue to improve. Vitantonio Liuzzi recorded a best lap in the race that was a second faster than Glock, and finished only 18 seconds behind the German - which accounts for his drive-through for a jump start. Narain Karthikeyan ran the race on a one-stop, almost experimentally, and was only 1.2s behind Liuzzi at the finish having been 0.2s slower in Q1. On that form, you’d have to say his re-acclimatisation to F1 is pretty much complete.