This weekend sees teams head to China for the fourth round of the 2014 Formula One World Championship. As the teams are preparing for action, let’s take a look at what we can expect in Shanghai for the 11th Chinese Grand Prix.
The Shanghai International Circuit is 5.451km long, and the drivers and teams will battle it out over 56 laps this coming Sunday.
Pirelli will be bringing the soft and medium tyre compounds to China, with the expected cooler conditions (18 to 22 degrees) meaning that the medium compound may make for a good race tyre. Rain is forecast, so the teams may have to brave the conditions for the third time this season.
Two DRS zones will be in effect: one on the pit straight, and the other on the longest straight (1170m) on the F1 calendar, which leads up to the tight hairpin at Turn 14.
Many will be expecting Mercedes to continue their dominant start to the season, and who can blame them?
The Brackley-based German squad have won all three of the opening rounds while starting from pole position, with two of these victories being backed up with 1-2 finishes. With a general lack of development during the early fly-away races, it’s hard to see Mercedes not running away with the Chinese GP as well, pending catastrophic circumstances.
While we have seen dominant teams quite often in recent times, Mercedes have at least allowed their drivers to race for position on track, which certainly made for a very exciting Bahrain GP two weeks ago.
Shanghai was the venue of Nico Rosberg’s maiden GP victory, as well as Mercedes’ first victory upon taking over the Brawn outfit in 2010, so the precedent is also there for a strong showing this weekend.
Red Bull will be looking to solidify their position after a strong showing in Bahrain, before attempting to close the gap to Mercedes once the European season starts in Barcelona. They currently sit fourth in the Constructor’s standings, from just a 50 per cent points-scoring rate.
Following Daniel Ricciardo’s appeal against his disqualification from second place in the Australian GP, they will be looking to get back thepoints that they lost, and quickly.
Red Bull accepted the decision of the appeal, which has now clarified any doubt that the teams may have had over the regulations, even if it was just Red Bull who openly doubted them.
After a few lull seasons for the Scuderia, team principal Stefano Domenicali resigned from his position earlier this week to be replaced by Marco Mattiacci, a former car sales chief from within Ferrari’s road division.
Ferrari haven’t been impressed with their performances so far this season, and their problems continues when Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen finishing in ninth and tenth in Bahrain. While the Chinese GP will be the first time we see Mattiacci in charge at Ferrari, the team will be hoping to turn their form around as quickly as possible.
Intra-team battles were a feature of the Bahrain GP. Martin Brundle stated the race was run with “Noah’s Ark” formation, with the majority of the top 10 finishing one position away from their teammates.
This escalated from the Malaysian GP held one week prior, although it was still evident with the battle between Felipe Massa and Valteri Bottas at Williams. Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez battled for third throughout the race before being split by Ricciardo, and we all saw what happened out the front of the pack.
Again, due to the lack of development that teams traditionally have on the fly-away races, it could be expected that this may again be the case in China as drivers look to assert their authority within their teams.
The race starts at 5pm AEST on Sunday, giving Australian fans a perfect chance to catch some F1 action over the long weekend.
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