Can Anyone Catch Lewis Hamilton After a Dominant Chinese Grand Prix Weekend?
After a shocking loss to Sebastian Vettel in Malaysia two weeks ago, Lewis Hamilton quelled any talk of a Ferrari championship challenge with a dominant weekend in Shanghai, capped by a carefully controlled victory in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix. Perhaps a bit too carefully controlled for his team-mate Nico Rosberg's liking.
After the race, Rosberg complained in the FIA press conference that Hamilton had been holding him up, reiterating a team radio message that had been broadcast during the grand prix. Curious, then, that the timing data indicates Rosberg only once crossed the start/finish line to begin a new lap within one second of his team-mate.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Hamilton rightly responded, "it’s not my job to look after Nico’s race," and that if Rosberg was actually being held up, he could have passed him.
The results in Shanghai confirm not only that Vettel's win in Malaysia signifies false hope for anyone wanting a closer championship fight, but also that Rosberg does not have an answer for Hamilton's speed and consistency.
Indeed, since the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix—where Rosberg clumsily clipped Hamilton's car—Hamilton has finished ahead of Rosberg in nine of 10 races. The lone exception was last year's Brazilian Grand Prix.
"I gave it everything in the end on the prime tyre to try to close the gap to Lewis and just took some risks," Rosberg said on the podium in China. "But it didn’t pay off because my tyres just died off in the end, so there we go, I wouldn’t have managed to get any closer."
It is becoming an all-to-familiar refrain—almost, couldn't, tried my best—especially from a man who was so nearly champion last year. Had it been Hamilton's car, rather than Rosberg's, that broke down in the heat of that Abu Dhabi night last November, the German would be the defending champ right now.
Instead, he is looking for something—anything, really—to give him a chance in a straight fight on track.
Hamilton now leads his team-mate by 17 points in the Drivers' Championship. After three races in 2014, Rosberg was leading the championship by 11 points and Hamilton's lead never exceeded 24 points until Rosberg's unlucky retirement in the desert.
Another one-two finish at the next race with Hamilton in the lead would give him a 24-point cushion.
Before Rosberg can even worry about Hamilton, though, he must get back in front of Vettel, whose Malaysian victory allowed him to split the two Mercedes drivers in the standings. With a third-place finish in China, Ferrari's new star is 13 points behind Hamilton and four ahead of Rosberg.
However, as expected, the Shanghai race also confirmed Ferrari are still a long way behind the Silver Arrows in terms of all-around performance. Although Vettel appeared to be hanging with the Mercs early in the race, Hamilton and Rosberg were not pushing their cars anywhere near the limit.
"I would have obviously loved to put more pressure on Mercedes: after the first and second stop we were able to be right there, but in the last stint they were able to pull away quite a lot," Vettel said after the race, per a team press release. "Basically we are closer than four weeks ago, which is positive, but there is still a lot to do."
Vettel had a perfect race in Malaysia, aided by the track conditions, the weather and a safety car, but he did not have any problems in China, either. The simple fact is, aside from the very specific circumstances that came together at Sepang, Ferrari are not yet ready to challenge Mercedes.
Ferrari are close—perhaps closer than Red Bull were at any point last season—but they cannot consistently outperform the Mercs yet.
During qualifying in Shanghai, Vettel's fastest lap was nearly a second slower than the Mercedes' best times. In the race, when Hamilton and Rosberg were pushing, they were easily quicker than Vettel and everyone else.
Vettel made his second pit stop on Lap 30, trying to close the gap to Rosberg in second place, which was about five seconds at the time, by putting on new tyres before his countryman could respond. Rosberg pitted on the next lap and then started to pull away from Vettel, building the gap to 12 seconds by the time the safety car was called out for the last two laps of the race.
Hamilton, meanwhile, was even better. While Vettel and Rosberg pitted, Hamilton turned in the two fastest laps of the entire grand prix, on tyres that were 17 laps old, before making his own stop, demonstrating how much the Mercedes drivers had been holding back early in the race.
Hamilton's third-fastest lap came on Lap 53, right before the safety car appeared while the marshals gracelessly tried to shove Max Verstappen's stricken Toro Rosso through a gap in the pit wall.
He completed that lap in one minute, 42.668 seconds. Vettel's time on the same lap was more than a second slower: one minute, 43.674 seconds. Before the safety car bunched everyone up, Vettel was 22 seconds behind Hamilton (Rosberg was 10 seconds behind his team-mate)—back to the same old Mercedes dominance, as though Malaysia never happened.
Maybe that is why Rosberg felt the need to spice up the post-race press conference with a ridiculous claim that Hamilton was slowing him down. If neither he, nor Vettel, nor anyone else can compete with Hamilton on the track, at least they can create drama afterward.
There is no break for the teams, with the Bahrain Grand Prix coming up next weekend. Rosberg fought a thrilling battle with Hamilton last year at the end of the race in Sakhir, although he was unable to get past.
This year, if he finds himself behind Hamilton again and he is being held up, Rosberg should go ahead and overtake.
All timing statistics in this article are taken from the FIA's official data.
Follow me on Twitter for updates when I publish new articles and for other (mostly) F1-related news and banter: @MatthewWalthert
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
