Hamilton leads Chinese GP from start to finish

F1 Grand Prix, GP China, Shanghai International Ciruit

Lewis Hamilton dominated the Chinese Grand Prix to win his second race this season. The reigning World Champion led teammate Rosberg to the finish, ahead of the Ferrari duo.

The start of the race proved to be a straightforward affair for the Mercedes drivers as both easily stayed ahead of everybody else. Hamilton came out of the first corner complex in the lead, ahead of Rosberg and Vettel. Raikkonen enjoyed a great start and immediately got ahead of both Williams before turn 1.

In sharp contrast, Daniel Ricciardo rapidly dropped back from his 7th place on the grid, and soon found himself in 16th place, before gaining two places again in the next few laps by getting past Alonso and Kvyat again.

Other notable starts were marked by Hulkenberg who moved up from 16th to 12th. Sadly it wasn't to make much difference as he retired from the race on lap 10.

In lap 13, Grosjean is the first to stop, followed one lap later by Vettel and Massa. Hamilton pitted in the same lap with Rosberg one lap later, along with Raikkonen. The top 4 drivers took on a new set of soft tyres whereas Williams in 5th and 6th and Lotus in 7th and 8th took on new medium tyres.

Lap 16 is the end of the race Kvyat, halting alongside the track with white smoke coming out of the back of the car, suggesting an engine failure.

By lap 25, positions at the front have not changed, with Hamilton running a controlled pace to lengthen the life of his medium tyres. At one point he was driving even slower until Rosberg started complaining about the lack of pace. As a result, Vettel and Raikkonen had no problem keeping up, with all of them running about 2 to 3 seconds apart from each other. Williams meanwhile are unable to follow with Massa in 5th already 27s down, with Bottas another 5s further down the road.

Meanwhile at the back, Sainz encountered another problem after already a dismal start to the race. Having recovered to 14th, a gearbox issue left him without drive for a few corners, allowing both McLaren's to get past him.

On lap 32, Vettel is the first of the leading pack to pit, changing to mediums. 3 laps later, Rosberg, Hamilton and Raikkonen have also pitted, retaking the same positions as before the stops.

Maldonado meawhile also stopped, but not before going much too wide on the pit entry, having to put his car in reverse for a moment to get back on the pit entry, rather than a run-off zone. The Venezuelan was in a points scoring position but after his stop rejoined the track in 15th place, about 40 seconds down on Grosjean in 7th place.

5 laps from the end, Verstappen retired from the race, seeing an 8th place finish go up in smoke. On the main straight, his car initially threw blew smoke while accellerating out of the final corner, followed by a complete lockup of the rear wheels in front of the pitlane. As that prevented Verstappen to get his car off of the racetrack, a safety car was brought on track, leading the cars to the finish.

Still, with safety car of without, Hamilton won the race in an extremely controlled fashion. Rosberg ran the entire race in second place with the two Ferrari's trailing the Mercedes duo.