Race – Räikkönen wins in China, Hamilton OUT (1)

It’s Kimi Räikkönen who won at the end of a Grand Prix as eventful as last week in Japan. The Finn was opportunistic and took advantage of Hamilton’s retirement after a tire issue. Alonso, who finished second, is back in contention with the Finn in the championship. They are respectively 4 and 7 points behind leader Hamilton.

The tension is at its peak even before the start. The stakes are high, and as a referee, we look to the sky since the rain is expected any minute now.

The start is underway on a very wet track, but the full wet tires were not deemed necessary. It’s Fernando Alonso who gets the best start of the four protagonists. The Spaniard manages to go around Massa and Räikkönen on the outside of the first corner but can only overtake Massa. A few corners later, the Brazilian regains the advantage after cleverly blocking the Spaniard to prevent him from overtaking again.

Hamilton has already pulled away and Ralf Schumacher, who had secured an impressive 6th place in qualifying, spins out…

Behind, it’s Vettel who gets a very good start, gaining 6 places, just like Liuzzi, who finds himself in the points after the first lap. The Toro Rosso cars are very effective in wet conditions, which will benefit them since rain appears a few minutes after the start. It seems that it is not torrential.

After 10 laps, Kovalainen is in trouble. The Finn has a lot of fuel and is overtaken in quick succession by Vettel and Trulli. He has fallen back to 12th place.

Ralf Schumacher is doing everything he can to make up for his mistake. The German, with good settings, overtakes Barrichello and Kovalainen, and he is now 13th. Kovalainen continues his decline; he can’t keep up the pace and his car seems to be suffering greatly from the rear end.

First wave of pit stops opened on the 18th lap with Hamilton. Conditions are improving, the track is drying, and there’s hesitation about changing tires, but the four main contenders don’t change anything, and neither do their positions. Hamilton is still ahead of Räikkönen, but with a smaller gap now. Massa is 3rd ahead of Alonso.

The positions stabilize until the 24th lap where, despite forecasts of rain, Webber and Wurz take the gamble of running on dry tires. Despite some skids, Webber quickly manages to set the best time on track, later surpassed by Wurz, who is on softer tires.

One lap later, Alonso manages to take advantage over Massa at the end of the main straight, then the Brazilian immediately pits to switch to Slick tires.

On the 27th lap, just as everyone switches to slick tires, the rain suddenly reappears. Webber, Wurz, Kubica, Schumacher, Sutil… all are in trouble. Read more

Chinese GP standings