Nico Rosberg continued to develop his perfect start to the 2016 Formula One season by emerging as the winner at this morning’s Chinese Grand Prix – crossing the line more than half a minute ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Daniil Kvyat. This makes his championship lead 36 points ahead of his team mate Lewis Hamilton, who finished seventh.
From the outset, the race looked like it was going to be an interesting one. Hamilton had engine problems in qualifying and would start last, while Rosberg continued his good run of form and started on pole position.
At the start, though, the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo managed to get into the lead.
Behind him, there were cars running off the track in all directions in a chaotic start. Contact between the two Ferrari’s of Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen was the trigger of a domino effect through the rest of the pack as they swerved to avoid the red cars. Kyvat’s exuberance had been one of the causes of the clash in the first place as he swept past to create a wedge. Hamilton collided with Felipe Nasr’s Sauber and both Raikkonen and Hamilton limped to the pits with no front wings.
Ricciardo’s lead didn’t last long, as his left-rear tyre failed along the back straight on lap four – another in a vast array of tyre problems this weekend – which placed Rosberg back into the lead and brought out the Safety Car to clear the debris.
There Rosberg stayed.
Throughout the rest of the field, there were scraps aplenty with lots of good racing lower down the field.
Daniel Ricciardo recovered to a solid fourth. Raikkonen made his way up to fifth.
Lewis Hamilton struggled to pass Felipe Massa’s Williams and ended up crossing the line in seventh.
Remarkably, despite all the contact, there were no retirements in the race.