By Telema Davies
It’s only the fourth Grand Prix on the calendar of Formula One racing series, and Mercedes looks set to run out winner of one of motorsports greatest competitions. Lead driver for Mercedes Team, Lewis Hamilton, is showing a renewed dominance as he’s gone on to claim three victories in three car racing series including the just concluded Chinese Grand Prix. Though early days in the season, it’s a remarkable feat for the 29-year-old Stevenage born racing driver.
Following on in his triumph from Malaysia and Bahrain, Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position at the practice session on Shanghai International Circuit; an indication of what was to come in the main event. Hamilton has always been one of the forces to be reckoned with in Formula One even as a driver for the McLaren Team before switching teams in 2012. It was quite an emotional decision taken by Hamilton, as McLaren were the first team to offer him a professional career in Formula One.
The Chinese Grand Prix was his third victory out of four this season and the 25th of his career (his first victory coming in 2008 – his first world championship), passing the record of Juan Manuel Fangio and equaling that of Jim Clark and Niki Lauda. He still trails his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg in the world championship because of his failure to finish the opening race in Australia. The gap, however, is now down to four points between them.
Hamilton’s teammate, Rosberg, completed his own hat-trick of second places, while third place went to Fernando Alonso with an improved Ferrari performance. It was an interesting moment for the Red Bull team as Daniel Ricciardo proved too fast for his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, the four-times world champion. Sebastian Vettel looks far from the driver who won the world championship in the 2013 season; though he started slow as is the case presently.
With issues to grind for the Red Bull Team, the day’s event belonged to Lewis Hamilton who dotted away from pole beating the pursuing Rosberg by 18.6 seconds at the end. A poor start from Rosberg from fourth on the grid was made worse when he clashed with the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and he dropped back to seventh. An ecstatic Hamilton said after the race, “I can’t believe how amazing the team is. I was racing for myself. It feels great. I’m so happy. We’re going to keep pushing.”
With Hamilton racing himself, it was left to Rosberg to make the moves, which he did to go past Nico Hϋlkenberg and n Felipe Massa before overtaking the Red Bull pair, Ricciardo to go fourth and then Vettel to go third before accounting for Alonso. Rosberg said: the whole weekend went badly for me and I didn’t have telemetry for the race. But I’m leading the championship.” Or, so he thinks; as Hamilton is right on his tail.
This was Lewis Hamilton’s third time winning the Chinese Grand Prix.