Chinese Grand Prix 2016: 5 Bold Predictions for Shanghai Race
The third round of the new Formula One season will take place at this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit, where Lewis Hamilton will continue his search for a first win of 2016.
Now a three-time world champion, having dominated the 2015 campaign, the British driver will tell you he has very little left to prove.
At a time his great rival and Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg is in the midst of a career-best run of five successive wins, however—and establishing a handy lead at the top of the drivers' standings—a first victory of 2016 is now a matter of urgency.
Yet Hamilton is the most successful driver in Chinese GP history, and while he might be without a win since last October, he will still enter this weekend's race as the one to beat.
With a look at a surprise podium finisher, Fernando Alonso's likely return to the McLaren-Honda cockpit, the driver to watch in qualifying and the team on course for a first points finish of the season, here are five predictions for Shanghai.
Lewis Hamilton Will Convert Pole Position into a 1st Win of 2016
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Whenever Lewis Hamilton has found himself requiring a strong performance and a big result, the Chinese Grand Prix has often been there to help.
When, in 2008, he arrived in Shanghai just seven days after a miserable race in Japan—where the nightmares of his '07 near-miss threatened to return—he drove immaculately to place one hand on his first world title.
When he trailed Nico Rosberg by 25 points after the opening race of 2014, China was the third in what at that point was a career-best run of four successive victories to wrestle back the momentum in the drivers' championship.
And when Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari seemed to blow the title race wide-open with their surprise victory in Malaysia last year, Hamilton slammed it shut by dominating from pole position and immediately settling the nerves of his Mercedes team.
Despite his assertion, per Sky Sports' James Galloway, that he is "really chilled" about Rosberg's two consecutive triumphs at the start of 2016, Hamilton—without a win since last October—will again enter a Chinese GP in need of a victory.
And, this time, the drought will surely come to an end.
Amid the recent uncertainty surrounding qualifying, the one guarantee on Saturdays so far this season is that Hamilton will be on pole. And at a circuit featuring one of the shortest runs toward Turn 1, his start problems of Australia and Bahrain should have a lesser effect ahead of that swirling opening sequence of corners in China.
Already the most successful driver in the race's 12-year history, Hamilton will begin to erode Rosberg's 17-point lead with a fifth Chinese GP win.
Ferrari Unreliability Will Allow Daniel Ricciardo to Return to the Podium
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Ferrari may be closer to Mercedes in performance terms this season, but it is ultimately points that win prizes.
While Sebastian Vettel challenged the Silver Arrows at various points over the Australian and Bahrain weekends, the four-time world champion is already 35 points adrift of Nico Rosberg after the opening two grands prix.
With Vettel failing to start a race for the first time in his career at Sakhir—a fortnight after Kimi Raikkonen's airbox was found spitting flames in the Albert Park pit lane—it is increasingly obvious that Ferrari have inadvertently sacrificed reliability in their efforts to match Mercedes for pace in 2016.
Both Vettel and Raikkonen are previous winners at Shanghai, but we're expecting Ferrari's flaws to be exposed once again this weekend, wiping out both SF16-H's and allowing a familiar face to make a welcome return to the podium.
Better for his troubled 2015 campaign, Daniel Ricciardo is performing even more impressively than he did during his breakthrough season two years ago and is already knocking on the door of the podium, with two comfortable fourth-place finishes in Australia and Bahrain.
Although Red Bull's TAG Heuer-branded Renault power unit continues to lack the outright grunt of the Mercedes and Ferrari engines over one lap, Ricciardo—who started as high as fourth at the power-dependent Sakhir circuit—could spring a surprise on Saturday if qualifying is held in wet conditions.
And if Ferrari encounter more problems in the race, Ricciardo, as ever, will be there to pick up the pieces.
Fernando Alonso Will Be Allowed to Race, but His Race Won't Last Long
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How much more pain can a two-time world champion take?
After a disastrous 2015, when he was restricted to just two points finishes in 19 races following his move to McLaren-Honda, Fernando Alonso's misery has continued into the new season.
The Spaniard was fortunate to hobble away from his crash in last month's Australian Grand Prix, but the injuries sustained in the incident—a broken rib and a pneumothorax, as he told an FIA press conference (per Motorsport.com)—ruled him out of a race for a second time in 12 months.
That meant Alonso was left to lurk in the McLaren garage like a spare something-or-other at a wedding as Stoffel Vandoorne, the team's reserve driver, inherited his MP4-31 in Bahrain.
At the time of writing, it is unclear whether Alonso will be declared fit to race in China, but given his habit of posting in-training images on his official Instagram account in recent weeks, the likelihood is that Vandoorne's services will not be required again this weekend.
The good news, at least, is that Alonso will return to the cockpit with McLaren seemingly in better shape than when he rolled through the Albert Park gravel trap almost four weeks ago.
Jenson Button told the team's official website how he was confident of scoring "a good amount of points" prior to his retirement at Sakhir, with Vandoorne making up for the 2009 world champion's misfortune by claiming McLaren's first top-10 finish since last year's United States GP.
Such is the way that Alonso's second spell at McLaren has played out, however, that he will probably be prevented from taking advantage of his team's increased competitiveness in China.
We predict his return to racing will last less than 10 laps, with another Honda-related problem pushing him ever closer to a potential F1 exit.
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Pascal Wehrlein Will Squeeze into Q3 for Manor
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Despite winning a championship as professional as the DTM in 2015, Pascal Wehrlein's graduation to Formula One wasn't greeted with the same hullabaloo as we witnessed with, say, Max Verstappen.
That was partly due to his age and the team he was signed by—perennial backmarkers Manor as opposed to Toro Rosso—but also because it was debatable just how good Wehrlein, for all his success in DTM and for all the faith Mercedes showed in him, really was.
On the evidence of his first two races, however, the 21-year-old could be as exciting a talent as any driver to emerge from Red Bull's celebrated junior program.
His opening lap in Australia, where he vaulted from the very back of the grid to run as high as 14th, was followed by a 13th-place finish in Bahrain, where he beat both Saubers and Renaults—as well as Force India's Sergio Perez—in the first segment of qualifying.
Wehrlein later told the team's official website of his disappointment "to miss out on Q2," but an even better result could be within reach this weekend.
The BBC's weather forecast suggests the 2015 qualifying format in China will return on a day of mixed conditions, with rain showers potentially leading to the kind of unpredictability that was intended to be created by the failed elimination-style structure.
Throughout the history of F1, stars of the future have tended to shine on rainy days, and if those showers do hit Shanghai on Saturday, Wehrlein—aided by that drivable Mercedes power unit—could lead Manor to their best-ever grid position.
Kevin Magnussen Will Score Renault's 1st Point of the Season
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Following their takeover of the Enstone-based Lotus outfit at the end of last year, Renault's return to Formula One has gone as expected so far in 2016.
The moments of promise—Jolyon Palmer's accomplished debut in Australia, Kevin Magnussen's fightback in Bahrain—have been counterbalanced with the niggles you would associate with a team very much in transition.
Those niggles led to Palmer failing to even start the last race, but it is Magnussen who has suffered more misfortune in the opening two grands prix, suffering a first-lap puncture at Albert Park before being forced to start from the pit lane in Bahrain after missing the weighbridge in practice.
Yet the fact that the Dane has twice recovered to finish on the fringes of the top 10 at two very different circuits suggests the first points of the latest Renault era are on the horizon.
With long, fast corners and the biggest straight on the F1 calendar—1170 metres is "the equivalent of 11 football pitches being put end-to-end," according to Sky Sports—the demands of the Shanghai circuit are unlikely to favour the R.S.16 car.
But as Magnussen told the team's official website, a "normal" race is all he needs to put Renault in contention for points in what is an incredibly tight midfield battle.
We reckon he will finally enjoy a smooth, trouble-free weekend in China to register his first points finish since Brazil 2014.
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