2017 Chinese Grand Prix review

After the formation lap Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel stopped his car in the 2nd grid spot but half of his car was outside of it. What was that all about?! Did he really think that it was legal to do so? The weirdest thing was that he didn't even get a penalty for it. Probably because his start wasn't that good so they forgave him.

Vettel's teammate Kimi Räikkönen got a better start but had to brake so that he wouldn't hit the German's rear.

The Mercs both got a good start. Lewis Hamilton lead the race and Valtteri Bottas almost overtook Vettel. Even though he was faster he didn't have the room to overtake in the corner.

The one who had much better room was Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and he got pass the Iceman (aka Räikkönen).

Both Williams drivers had really bad luck. Felipe Massa dropped back three positions at least! but that's mostly because Williams isn't very good in the rain. Lance Stroll on the other hand got hit by Force India's Sergio Perez and had to retire from the race. Stroll got a lot of criticism for retiring but I don't see how it was his fault. He had no place to go at that point.

Before Sauber's Antonio Giovinazzi started his 4th lap he crashed his car at the same spot as he did in qualifying. The safety car was then deployed. In my opinion the crash happened because it was too early for slicks.

When the safety car was out we saw several drivers pit for slicks as well. Hamilton and Bottas first but the Finn dropped back a bit because he had to queue behind Hamilton. When they were on track Bottas also spun which made it more difficult for him. When you drive over a puddle of water with slicks that will happen and he knows it. If you can't see it in time then you are just a passenger in your own car.

Bottas also got a lot of negative feedback from the media but I don't think that he was a bad choice for Mercedes. It's unfair to judge the whole driver based on one mistake. Have people forgotten how good he has been before this race? In the previous race or the seasons before? Not many mistakes from him over the years but as Keke Rosberg used to say... "according to the media you are as good as your previous race performance". The Finn blamed himself but I was just wondering that who's idea was it to put slicks on when the track was still wet? Maybe the gamble wasn't good for everybody... They are different drivers and different personalities.

The safety car came into the pits and we could right away hear Räikkönen complain on the radio that there is a problem with his engine. He had no torque what so ever. Of course many thought that Räikkönen was making excuses but I don't think he did. He knows how the car felt in testing and haven't had the same feeling since. I remember in 2014 when he complained about the car and everybody said he was making excuses, Fernando Alonso, who was his teammate at the time tried his car in testing and said the car was undrivable. Guess you need someone like Alonso to verify for it to be true.

3 laps after the safety car Max Verstappen overtook his teammate Ricciardo. What a battle! I like watching Verstappen fight for his positions. That's just pure racing!

On lap 20 Vettel finally overtook Räikkönen. It was weird that it took him over 10 laps to achieve but only 2 laps to overtake Ricciardo. When Vettel overtook Ricciardo they also touched but luckily nothing bad happened.

6 laps later Vettel also overtook Verstappen when he locked his front tyres. Verstappen had to pit but in my opinion it helped him a lot to get better tyres. One reason was that when he got out on track again he had no problem overtaking Bottas who had much older tyres.

Red Bull sees that it's a good idea to change tyres and asks Ricciardo also to pit for supersofts. Ferrari asks Vettel also to do the same and then Mercedes wants to secure their position by asking Hamilton to pit for new tyres.

The only one who didn't pit was Räikkönen. He was wondering on the radio what position they thought Räikkönen would finish in if he wouldn't pit. He continued to say that there's more than 20 laps to go so what is going on? Ferrari then told him to pit also. Did they forget him or what was going on? Very weird thinking if you ask me.

When Räikkönen pitted he dropped from 2nd to 6th place but overtook Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz quickly for 5th. I guess his new tyres worked better. Sad that they didn't change them sooner.

On the last lap I really enjoyed seeing the two Red Bulls fight for the last podium finish. This was made possible by Haas' Romain Grosjean for not letting the Red Bulls pass even though he got blue flags. Verstappen complained on the radio and asked the team to do something.

They crossed the finish line and nobody really changed their position on the last lap.

In my opinion this was a much better race than Melbourne. We also saw more overtaking which was a relief!

And then as usual it's time for the predictions and the results.

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT

The race:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT
2. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes - WRONG. Vettel was 2nd and Bottas was 6th.
3. Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari - WRONG. Verstappen was 3rd and Räikkönen was 5th.

Fastest lap: Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari - WRONG. Hamilton was fastest.

Surprise: Esteban Ocon, Force India - He got points again but didn't really surprise anybody. Or did he?

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