Mercedes AMG Petronas driver Nico Rosberg won the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit today, his third win from three races. The German, son of 1982 champion Keke Rosberg, has opened up the championship lead with 75 points to his name and took an absolutely dominant victory today.
Sebastian Vettel of Scuderia Ferrari and Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull rounded off the podium, with the young Russian driver scoring the second ever podium of his career, the first coming at the Hungarian Grand Prix of 2015, where Kvyat finished in second ahead of teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
Rosberg completely dominated proceedings today in what was an action-packed race, with his teammate and three-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton starting the race from the back of the grid after an ERS failure.
The Briton, who won the title back-to-back in 2014 and 2015 after his first win in 2008, started both Grands Prix at Australia and Bahrain on pole, but was unable to score a win. Today, however, Hamilton put in an impressive effort to move his way up the grid, finishing in P7.
The Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel were involved in a shunt early on in the race, with Raikkonen spinning out and sustaining a bit of damage; he pitted and got back out on track relatively quickly, however.
2007 World Champion Raikkonen, one of the oldest on the track, was another of the day’s star drivers. In a drive reminiscent of his early years with Scuderia Ferrari, the Finn caught out several of his younger competitors, and despite at one point dropping to P13 following a pit stop, raced his way back up the grid. In the final 10 laps, Raikkonen went wheel-to-wheel with Lewis Hamilton to go P5 over the former World Champion.
This marks the first race this year that both Ferrari drivers have finished in the points after problems for Raikkonen in Australia and Vettel in Bahrain.
The old guard of Formula One all put in serious racing today, with Felipe Massa also pushing Hamilton, finishing just ahead of the Briton in P6 after the two nearly made contact on track.
With Mercedes taking victory today, both drivers were in the top 10 - as are both Ferraris, Red Bull, Williams and Toro Rossos – the top 10 made up of 5 teams this time around.
At least a number of those finishes were unexpected early on; Ricciardo suffering an early puncture after stealing the lead from Rosberg in the opening moments of the race and both Ferrari cars, colliding with each other all moving down the grid, managed to take the top spots today.
With teammate Daniel Ricciardo qualifying in P2 and then losing out, Kvyat took on the mantle of leading driver and pushed his car to the maximum for a podium finish, even leading Vettel for a time.
Ricciardo himself finished well in P4, taking double points for the team.
Force India’s Sergio Perez looked in contention for the high points for a while, going P5 for a period; he finished just out of the points today at P11 behind the Williams of Valtteri Bottas.
Nico Rosberg now has the record for most race wins without a championship title, overtaking Sir Stirling Moss. He also joins teammate Lewis Hamilton and McLaren's Fernando Alonso as the only multiple race winners in Shanghai.
