Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Chinese Grand Prix was that nobody was penalized. Not one car got any penalty of any sort – no new rules were invented, and no interference from the stewards was at all necessary.
Otherwise, this was a boring race, although it has to be said that Lewis Hamilton – who dominated the event from Friday until this morning – drove perfectly, pulling away from a perfect start to establish a lead over the two Ferrari’s that was never even under investigation, never mind under threat.
That the lead Ferrari was – until a formation passing manoeuvre late in the race – that of Kimi Raikkonen will be heartening for the Finn, for prior to Felipe Massa pulling a lovely overtaking manoeuvre on him with a few laps to go (team orders? Why, no, team orders are illegal!) he had the legs of the Brazilian.
At the start we had seen plumes of smoke coming from the McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen, and while the Finn battled gamely with Fernando Alonso in the Renault for the opening laps, he would find his race well and truly shot later on when the corresponding tyre decided to shred itself, and eventually retired when out of the points.
Alonso drove his usual copybook race to fourth, while behind him the two BMW-Saubers came home fifth and sixth, Nick Heidfeld having made a great start from his penalised ninth grid spot to cross the line in his rightful sixth place on lap one, and Robert Kubica fighting back from 11th to take more points in an impressive year.
The final points went to Timo Glock, the Toyota driver running one stop to seventh, and to Nelson Piquet, another good drive from the under pressure Brazilian.
Other notables went to Mark Webber, who started put on a three stop plan, passed loads of cars in the opening laps, and then faded into obscurity, and to Giancarlo Fisichella, who did a simply great job of holding everyone up.
So, we go to Brazil with Hamilton heading Massa by seven points, and the stewards no doubt thumbing the rulebooks for obscure penalties to slap on the McLaren at Sao Paolo.
Written: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 08:58:21
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