After the giddy heights of the win in the scorching Malaysian sun, Ferrari were brought back down to earth this weekend in Shanghai. Mercedes proved that once again they were the top team, but what was great to see was that Mercedes did not romp away as they did in Melbourne.
Chinese Grand Prix 2015 Ferrari Review
Kimi Raikkonen finally got a clean qualifying session in without any trouble and managed to score sixth on the grid alongside Valtteri Bottas in the Williams. Sebastian Vettel qualified third behind the Mercedes: the car just didn’t quite have the one lap pace to challenge for the front row.
At the start of the race, Kimi had an excellent start, quickly getting rid of Felipe Massa who was passed by his team-mate into turn one. Heading into turn six, Kimi dived up the inside of Bottas to take fourth place; he had to do this quickly to ensure he could keep up with his team-mate in the hunt for the Mercedes. Sebastian couldn’t quite get on terms with the Mercedes at the start and had to trail behind. Throughout his first stint he didn’t drop off on pace too much behind Nico Rosberg and was able to ensure he kept the Mercedes on their toes.
After the first round of pit stops Sebastian managed to close the gap to Rosberg, but couldn’t manage the undercut the Ferrari strategists would most likely have been looking for.
What became interesting after the race was that during the second stint on the softer tyres, Rosberg was complaining over the radio to his team over Lewis Hamilton’s pace and with Sebastian closing in on Nico, Mercedes felt the need to hurry Lewis up.
In the last stint Kimi had stopped later than Sebatian and had fresher tyres, while chasing him down in the final laps of the Grand Prix it looked like it was going to be a close finish between the two. Unfortunately, it was brought to an abrupt end because of Max Verstappen’s crash on the main straight.
It is very clear that Ferrari have improved to become the best of the rest, but I feel that what was unexpected is how close they’ve come to the Mercedes. Sebastian and Kimi have a great working relationship it seems and with more work, can Ferrari capitalise on perhaps Mercedes’ weaknesses and win more races?
