Chinese Grand Prix 2011

While it may be true that the Brit did have an outstanding race and the car seems strong, we haven’t even dropped a flag in Europe and it’s way too early for anyone to make Jeremy Clarkson like claims (or babbles, depending on your point of view). What was obvious is that 2011 is turning out to be a wee bit closer in competitiveness than RedBull was hoping for. Sebastian Vettel wasn’t able to add to his win streak and had to settle for second after trying to fend off the silver arrow. Mark Webber rounded out the podium, but the real story there was his drive from 18th after a flubbed qualifying round.

Jenson Button was the best of the rest, but only 10 seconds back at the end, putting numbers up for McLaren that should help out their constructors championship hopes, but with both Red Bulls on the podium, the Woking based team needs to be perfect if they expect to be on top come the end of the season. Nico Rosberg wasn’t that far behind Button in fifth place, but he finished in front of Schumacher, (ja ja, weider) adding further embarrassment to the elder driver only won here in 2006 and finished in eighth this weekend. Let’s just hope for his own records that he’s not shooting for any of those entries in the books that have Louis Chiron’s name on them.

The Ferraris finished in sixth and seventh with Massa ahead of Alonso and the Italian press is up in arms because the season is likely going to be a write off. Montezemolo went on the defensive making claims that the team will start working harder in a shorter timeframe. It wouldn’t look good if the highlights in the yearbook for 2011 show even more coverage on the FF that has received at best a cool response from most owners. It’s not too late to recover, but the Scuderia has dug a pretty deep hole for themselves.

Vitaly Petrov drove his Renault to ninth place, but was more or less a back marker more than half a lap back. Kobayashi-san drove the Sauber to tenth place to round out the points paying positions.

I must make an apology to fans of this column for missing the Malaysian GP (although I’m sure some prefer Pete’s less colorful commentary), but I was in Augusta for the final round of the Masters instead of watching the race. Besides watching Rory McIlroy do is impersonation of my normal golfing strategy of completely falling apart on the back nine, there were two things that really stuck out about how that event is different than F1. First, it is the classic Deep South and the people are genuinely friendly. Even the security guards wished everyone a nice day as they walked by, such a change from the goons that you see wandering around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve that cause you to wonder if you are visiting an F1 race or seeing a relative on death row. The club wanted to make sure that you were having a good time and it seemed real. The second point was that there wasn’t this ridiculous markup on either the food or the souvenirs that you get at an F1 race. Pimento cheese sandwiches were $1.50. Beer was $3.00 ($3.75 if you wanted an import). F1 still has a lot to learn on keeping the fans happy, and the fraying at the edges of the curtains is becoming obvious, so long as the camera men don’t keep tight shots and you actually get to see that the stands aren’t filled to capacity…

Race Results

1	HAMILTON	McLaren-Mercedes	1h36m58.226s
2	VETTEL	RBR-Renault	+ 5.1s
3	WEBBER	RBR-Renault	+ 7.5s
4	BUTTON	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 10.0s
5	ROSBERG	Mercedes	+ 13.4s
6	MASSA	Ferrari	+ 15.8s
7	ALONSO	Ferrari	+ 30.6s
8	SCHUMACHER	Mercedes	+ 31.0s
9	PETROV	Renault	+ 57.4s
10	KOBAYASHI	Sauber-Ferrari	+ 63.2s
11	DI RESTA	Force India-Mercedes	+ 68.7s
12	HEIDFELD	Renault	+ 72.7s
13	BARRICHELLO	Williams-Cosworth	+ 90.1s
14	BUEMI	STR-Ferrari	+ 90.6s
15	SUTIL	Force India-Mercedes	+ 1 lap
16	KOVALAINEN	Lotus-Renault	+ 1 lap
17	PEREZ	Sauber-Ferrari	+ 1 lap
18	MALDONADO	Williams-Cosworth	+ 1 lap
19	TRULLI	Lotus-Renault	+ 1 lap
20	D’AMBROSIO	Virgin-Cosworth	+ 2 laps
21	GLOCK	Virgin-Cosworth	+ 2 laps
22	LIUZZI	HRT-Cosworth	+ 2 laps
23	KARTHIKEYAN	HRT-Cosworth	+ 2 laps
24	ALGUERSUARI	STR-Ferrari	+ 45 laps, wheel
Fastest Lap	WEBBER	RBR-Renault	1m38.993s

Driver’s Championship Standings

1	VETTEL	RBR-Renault	68 Points
2	HAMILTON	McLaren-Mercedes	47 Points
3	BUTTON	McLaren-Mercedes	38 Points
4	WEBBER	RBR-Renault	37 Points
5	ALONSO	Ferrari	26 Points
6	MASSA	Ferrari	24 Points
7	PETROV	Renault	17 Points
8	HEIDFELD	Renault	15 Points
9	ROSBERG	Mercedes	10 Points
10	KOBAYASHI	Sauber-Ferrari	7 Points
11	SCHUMACHER	Mercedes	6 Points
12	BUEMI	STR-Ferrari	4 Points
13	SUTIL	Force India-Mercedes	2 Points
14	DI RESTA	Force India-Mercedes	2 Points

Constructor’s Championship Standings

1	RBR-RENAULT	105 Points
2	McLAREN-MERCEDES	85 Points
3	FERRARI	50 Points
4	RENAULT	32 Points
5	MERCEDES	16 Points
6	SAUBER-FERRARI	7 Points
7	STR-FERRARI	4 Points
8	FORCE INDIA-MERCEDES	4 Points