adminNico Rosberg took his third straight win of 2016 at the Chinese Grand Prix as team-mate Lewis Hamilton fought back to seventh in a hectic race. The world champion started from the back, suffered a broken front wing on the first lap and did five pit stops. Hamilton faces the prospect of trying to overhaul a 36-point deficit over the remaining 18 races of the season.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel took second despite colliding with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen on the first lap. The incident damaged both cars, with Raikkonen fighting back to fifth behind the Red Bulls of Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo.
Raikkonen’s rise through the field included passing Hamilton in the closing stages, Ferrari’s decision to use soft tyres for the final stint as opposed to the mediums chosen by Mercedes giving the Finn an advantage as Hamilton fought in vain to try to pass the Williams of Felipe Massa.
Hamilton will express his confidence at being able to erode Rosberg’s points lead, and will expect his awful luck of the first three races to turnaround. But the fact remains that no driver who has won the first three races of a season has failed to go on to take the world championship.
The race was shaped by an incident-packed opening, with a number of collisions on the first lap leading to the introduction of the safety car on lap four.
By that stage, Hamilton and Raikkonen had already pitted once to replace front wings damaged in first-corner collisions.
Raikkonen moved right into Vettel’s path as the German moved left to ensure he was not tagged by an aggressive dive down the inside by Kvyat.
Hamilton was then turned into by Sauber’s Felipe Nasr as he avoided Raikkonen’s damaged car swerving back on to the circuit.
Vettel confronted Kvyat about the incident in the pre-podium room after the race, saying: “You — asking what happened at the start. If I don’t go left, you crash into us and we all three go out — you are like a torpedo.”
Kvyat responded: “We didn’t crash.” To which Vettel said: “You didn’t. You were lucky this time.” Kvyat shrugged: “I’m on the podium; you’re on the podium.”
In the post-race interviews, Kvyat added: “You see the gap, you go for it on the inside. You see one car it is hard to see both. It was a risky move, I agree with Seb but you have to take risks and I am on the podium.” — BBC Sport
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