2019 Chinese GP: Hamilton wins against Ferrari tactics

"I think people will remember more exciting races than birthdays," said Sebastian Vettel after finishing third in the 1,000th round of the world championship in Shanghai.

He's right and that's why the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix is ​​unlikely to stay long in the memory. It was not a clbadic; the result was more or less settled once the second round began.

There will probably be two exceptions. The first is Lewis Hamilton, who looked bad in practice but bounced back to beat his teammate to victory.

The other will be Charles Leclerc, who, for the third time in as many races, has been reminded of what Ferrari really means when his drivers are "free to fight".

Mercedes Cruise at a one-two

This was touted as the 1000th Formula One race. Strictly speaking, it was actually the thousandth race of the world championship, but for 35 years, 'Formula 1 race' and 'World Championship race' have meant the same thing, and both have been confused.

Valtteri Bottas' explanation of how he lost his advantage was also reminiscent of 35 years ago, when Nigel Mansell crashed while leading a soaked Monaco Grand Prix, and attributed to a slippery white line. According to Bottas, crossing the starting line while his rear wheels demanded maximum traction, cost him valuable car lengths in Hamilton, who had gone to his side.

Whether he was right or not, for the third time in as many races, the poleman failed to keep his lead at the start and Hamilton was absent. He had spent the training trying to familiarize himself with his W10, and it was not until the qualifying started that he started extracting the same kind of lap time that Bottas could handle.

Now it was clear and Bottas realized he could not stay close to him. "Lewis had a strong enough relay," he admitted later. "I was at the start nearby, but obviously, when you're behind, you slip a little more and overheat the tires a little bit more."

On lap 20, Hamilton was five and a half seconds from the end. An advance comfortable enough that Mercedes can afford to play against Bottas first to minimize the danger of the cars behind him. That cost Hamilton more than three-and-a-half seconds of his lead, thanks in part to Bottas taking the fastest pit-stop of the race, but in 11 laps the race leader had restored his advantage.

This proved to be important as the cars behind pushed themselves to make two pit stops. As last year, when Bottas stunned Ferrari by jumping ahead of him in the first lap, the power of "clearing" was strong. Vettel's first quick lap at the pits was 1.6 seconds faster than his next lap, probably helped by improved engine modes.

Mercedes decided to protect itself by bringing the two cars together. It was a risky tactic and Bottas lost almost two seconds from his previous stop, but that meant Hamilton was less likely to be blown up by his teammate if he intercepted traffic at an inconvenient time.

"The situation was interesting because it was clear that Valtteri was under pressure from Sebastian," said Toto Wolff. "So, if Sebastian had stopped, he would have cut off Valtteri. The logical choice is to stop Valtteri first.

"But if we arrested Valtteri, he would have hurt Lewis. We did not want to interfere with the order and we were about to leave the gap to stack them properly. "

Fortunately for Wolff, Daimler 's President went on site to attend this excellent show of F1 team work. "It was impressive to see how the guys did it, the choreography, everyone who understood Formula 1. It was impressive, even Dieter Zetsche called all the mechanics and told them he had nothing seen from such. "

Hamilton managed his lead over the rest of the stint and duly clinched his sixth win on a track where no one has won more than twice.

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Ferrari escapes three-five

Ferrari still has not figured out how to fly the SF90 as it did in pre-season testing. Curiously, they were seven tenths of a second slower in Shanghai than 12 months earlier. "However, we know why," said Vettel after pbading the checkered flag in qualifying.

Whatever the reason, it meant that they were not an effective threat to Mercedes racing. Vettel left the line but as he explained, he was not able to make good use of his advantage and was more anxious to keep Max Verstappen than to lose a place in favor of his teammate.

"I thought I had a good start and that there was almost no place to go," he said. "I decided for the outside that I knew, at the moment I would decide, would not get me anywhere, but I did not want to lose my advantage because I knew that Charles would be somewhere inside. I did not know where Max would be. So, I wanted to stay with this train as long as I could and probably leave Charles inside and just make sure I would not lose an extra position. "

By the time the Mercedes pulled out, Vettel's willingness to let Leclerc through early seemed more and more of a mistake. He got closer to his teammate, within reach of the DRS, but did not try to pbad. When asked if he could go faster, Vettel replied that he could. Leclerc was asked to accelerate his pace and, shortly after, Ferrari called to exchange their drivers.

Before the start of the season, the team had insisted that their two drivers would be "free to fight," but that Vettel would be favored in the "50-50 situations," no matter what that meant. It was the third race time in three races where the team had intervened to favor Vettel, so we can see that by "50-50 situations" Ferrari meant: When Leclerc is much faster at the end of a race (Australia); When Leclerc is faster at the start of a race (Bahrain); and when Leclerc is perhaps slower at the start of a race (China).

Leclerc lost about a second and a half to let Vettel pbad. The result of this for Ferrari was that their main car was now 4.9 seconds from the nearest Mercedes instead of 3.7 seconds. And in subsequent rounds, the deficit has grown faster than before the conversion.

It was not the biggest tactical mistake that an F1 team made in Shanghai. But it was a respectable attempt to surpbad McLaren's efforts in 2007 with Hamilton.

The time lost meant that the Ferrari pair was now more threatened by Verstappen. The Red Bull driver could have qualified at least one of them if he had started his last Q3 race in time to complete a lap, but he did not do it. The Ferrari exchange meant that Red Bull was close to a second and when he was in front of one of them on the 17th lap, he was sure to pbad at least Leclerc. Ferrari had no choice but to bring in Vettel and leave Leclerc away to try to extend his stay.

Verstappen unleashed a new wave of pit stops when he returned to lap 34. Leclerc briefly stayed second, but was able to help his teammate by briefly delaying Bottas, but not enough so that Vettel could get closer to striking range.

Leclerc's strategy offered other opportunities that Ferrari missed. They left it for three rounds after Bottas pbaded it. Although it meant that he finally had the advantage of cooler tires by eight laps for his last stint, it cost him about six seconds to Verstappen. Without that, he might have ended the race with a snort of the Red Bull DRS.

This can not really be said that in hindsight. But it is also true that even though it became clear that Leclerc was not going to catch up with Verstappen, Ferrari did not bother to give him a new pair of newer tires so he could try to achieve the best turn taking a bonus point. Maybe they did not want him to take it from Vettel, who was holding it at the time?

If that was the case, they were counting without Red Bull introducing Pierre Gasly into a game of softs and tearing the bonus to Vettel by less than a tenth of a second. It was the only time of the weekend that the number 10 of Red Bull looked fast …

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Albon goes from wells to points

Despite the pressure from Sergio Perez and Kimi Raikkonen for most of the race, Daniel Ricciardo is hanging on to win his first points for Renault. He was about 20 seconds from his old team, which did not look bad at first. Then you remember Gasly's extra stop. Then you remember that Verstappen was a minute away on the road.

At least his Renault continued until the end. His teammate Nico Hulkenberg again gave up, much earlier than in Bahrain, because of a problem related to the MGU-K software.

The point markers were remarkably completed by Alexander Albon. The rookie had so crushed his Toro Rosso that he needed a new survival cell, a power block and a gearbox.

In the race, he used his STR14 fresh out of the factory to get a great effect. He quickly managed to avoid stragglers, his soft tires before turning Lance Stroll in front of the Racing Point rider. Unholy by Romain Grosjean who was breathing in his neck in the last rounds, it was a point as difficult as you could take it.

On the contrary, his teammate Daniil Kvyat returned to the first round, pbading to former teammate Carlos Sainz Jnr, before bouncing back on the other McLaren of Lando Norris, ruining their two races. Any penalty was deserved; if it were to be as severe as a highway system could be debated.

The Williams couple limped in 16th and 17th. For them right now, every race is the one they prefer not to remember.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken