Chinese Grand Prix 2015, Shanghai - Race 3/19

Shimmy

Shimmy

Shimmy

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Shanghai

The Shanghai International Circuit was designed as the race circuit for the new millennium. And the modern track, with its stunning architecture, has achieved its goal of becoming China's gateway to the world of Formula One racing since it debuted on the calendar in 2004.

Circuit architects Hermann Tilke and Peter Wahl on their creation: “The 5.4 kilometre racing track is shaped like the Chinese character 'shang', which stands for 'high' or 'above'.

Other symbols represented in the architecture originate from Chinese history, such as the team buildings arranged like pavilions in a lake to resemble the ancient Yuyan-Garden in Shanghai. Here, nature and technology are carefully used to create harmony between the elements.”

Not only is the course remarkable for its change of acceleration and deceleration within different winding turns, making high demands on the driver as well as the car, but also for its high-speed straights. These offer crucial overtaking opportunities and give an intense and exciting motorsport experience to the spectators. The main grandstand with 29,000 seats provides a spectacular view of almost 80 percent of the circuit.
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TV Times

Sky:
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BBC:
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Track Diagram & Information

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Weather Forecast

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2014 Onboard Lap

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom.../China_2014_-_Lewis_Hamilton_onboard_lap.html


2014 Race Edit



China Preview Quotes

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/latest/headlines/2015/4/china-preview-quotes.html


WDC Standings

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Constructors' Championship Standings

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Practice 1

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Practice 2

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Practice 3

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Qualifying

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Race

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More than likely, hopefully not though!

F1 needs Ferrari and the others to push the Mercs.. They've had it all to easy, first time they've been under real pressure in Malaysia and they lost out.
 
MooMoo444 said:
I can see McLaren giving them a good fight, but I think Merc will take it in the final stint.
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The same McLaren that DNF'd last time round and finished last in Australia?

Are you smr in disguise? Maybe you meant Ferrari?
 
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I recall hearing Merc were running a lot more downforce in Malaysia in comparison to Ferrari so I imagine they will be lowering that with Aero changes in China to take advantage of the long straights.

I expect Merc will be back up there but I think given Rosbergs weakness that Ferrari might be able to displace him for second place.
 
Hopefully the Williams team will mix things up a bit and Ferrari keep up development to get some decent race pace like in Malaysia. Oh and I hope that Kimi gets a podium, he always ends up with rotten luck.
 
New upgrades for Merc for this race. Hoping Williams do well here. Wonder if McLaren will do a full race?
 
On Hols this weekend so i will catch qually on bbc1. Recorded race on sky so i will watch when i get back. Like this track, not the best but no where near the worst either.
 
Is nobody bothering to watch the practise?

1st Practise
1. Hamilton
2. Rosberg
3. Vettel.

Watching McLaren this year, is like watching an extremely expensive, well organised car crash, in slow motion.

Alonso finished 1st practise, near the back of the grid and it does make me wonder if he will bother completing the season or decide to take a sabbatical after a few races. It cant be good for motivation, for a sportsman who is used to competing at the front, to be competing with the likes of Manor, who until a few weeks ago didnt know if they would even make the grid. Had Manor had a full (well financed) pre-season, even they'd be ahead of McLaren. I cant even describe McLaren's season as a disaster, because disaster is an understatement.
 
Did watch, just to tired to talk about it much.

On the fastest runs the Mclaren was closer than expected, though when effectively everyone else went full or almost full fuel runs and Hamilton dropped almost 5 seconds off the pace Alonso also dropped time but ended up the same distance back. I don't think their race pace suddenly came up to snuff, I think they probably put in say 15 laps of fuel rather than 50 laps of fuel. Button however kept on the roughly 3 second behind pace, didn't really notice if they were all very short runs or if he put in say 5 laps of fuel, as the track was clearly getting faster over the session as expected with a very dusty track.

I think Vettel's time over Kimi is probably down to track evolution as Kimi/Ham/Vettel did their fastest times at a similar time, Vettel significantly later. In which case the 1.6 second gap might be more accurate than the 1.1seconds from Vettel doing a lap a lot latter on.

Also another time that Hamilton was out there finding track limits, messing up his first laps, he'd not done a remotely fast lap for what, an hour or something before going in and nailing a lap half a second faster than Rosberg. Rosberg had done at least two but probably 3-4 pretty fast laps before setting his fastest time, Hamilton had posted a 1:49 or something in his first couple of runs, aborted laps and the like, then just went out and nailed Rosberg..... again.
 
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Alonso just doing a lap only 1.8 seconds down on Rosberg in FP2, Button 2/10th's back from that. Significantly faster and that will be a noticeable turn up in engine, though not necessarily in the right way.

It did occur to me that, effectively if you don't think you can compete at normal engine usage, if their ers is way down then the only real way to develop the car and check aero at higher speeds is to turn up fuel usage which we've seen being done in preseason and at other times by cars just for the speed testing.

I mean if the team knows for sure or lets say is 99% certain that are normal fuel usage they would be 3 seconds down a lap on the nearest guy, they will get no 'following another car' aero data, they won't get higher speed aero data, they'd just creep to the flag or even still not make it. They could just use up their fuel faster knowing they have nothing to lose or even under fuel the car and bring it in after 30-40 laps.


For a team talking about taking a backwards step here, their apparent speed in free practice seems.... hard to explain. Could be they qualify in the top 7-8 cars... then don't make it past lap 15. Ultimately we all know that engine can go faster, it's a case of it going faster over a race distance. They went faster at Malaysia but both failed to reach close to the end.
 
People are idiots, he did at least pick a big gap and run between them and jump the wall, he didn't try and stand out there as cars went past nor directly attempt to get in the way of a car.

Kimi... wow... that is some pace. Sorted out his brakes then as he said under braking it was pulling left then right then back. 1.3seconds faster than Merc while on the soft tire. I guess that is both faster tire + turn engine up + be happier with the car.

Rosberg on a lap so will see what the Merc's can do on the soft.


EDIT:- Mehri is running 2 seconds off the pace of Stevens... which is pretty god damned pathetic. Rosberg went off the track and didn't go faster though I'm not sure exactly how much time that kind of going off would lose him. Ultimately he was going fast, it was wide but I can't imagine he lost 2 seconds or anything, half a second max and he was 7/10th's down. Kimi was almost 7/10ths up on Vettel on the same tire.

Hamilton gained 1.8 seconds on the soft where Kimi gained 2.5 seconds almost. Kimi gained about 6/10th's on Hamilton on the softs vs the mediums. almost 1.2 second lead for Ham on the medium tire, down to a 0.45 second lead on the soft.

Massa made a booboo.
 
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