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Two weeks have passed since the enthralling race in Bahrain, where Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton took the winner’s trophy once again, finishing ahead of his teammate Nico Rosberg, who took out second place.
In the time that has past we’ve learnt that Red Bull Racing’s appeal against Daniel Ricciardo’s exclusion from the Australian Grand Prix results was dismissed. And rather shockingly, Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali stepped down from the top job, making way for a new leader in Marco Mattiacci.
Testing times now lie ahead for the Scuderia, who are yet to appear on the podium this season. It is a harsh reality to look at, considering it was Fernando Alonso who won the Chinese Grand Prix twelve months ago ahead of the Mercedes of Hamilton and the then Lotus of Kimi Räikkönen.
With weather expected to be fairly normal over the weekend, it’s expected that Mercedes will repeat their performances from Bahrain and indeed Malaysia. Some rain is predicted for the Saturday, but it remains to be seen if it has a profound effect on qualifying.
If qualifying was indeed wet, it could allow for a Red Bull or Ferrari to get closer to the front of the grid.
The big question mark sits on Nico Rosberg this weekend, after having been runner up in the last two race meetings to his teammate. When casting our minds back to 2012, the Shanghai International Circuit was the scene of the young German’s breakthrough victory.
Two years later, he sits atop the championship standings having won only the single race in Australia and then having finished twice behind his teammate.
Psychologically, the win would put him back on par with Hamilton. The two ‘best friends’ as they say, have shown each other absolutely no quarter in their encounters together so far this year.
Rosberg will want the win to demonstrate that their inter-team battle is a one-sided affair.
As per the last race, the battle for third place will be hot. When the newfound pace of the Red Bulls are factored in, it shapes itself to be a very interesting fight. Force India were the ones to prevail in third in Bahrain with Sergio Perez, but it’s likely that there’ll be another face on the podium.
Perez’s teammate Nico Hulkenberg is never out of contention. The two Williams cars are yet to deliver on their promise from pre-season testing. McLaren, who had a disappointing outing Bahrain, will want to prove that their performance in Melbourne was not just a one-off.
Having put the fuel flow meter saga to rest, Ricciardo will be racing with a clear head (in case he already wasn’t). In Bahrain we saw him constantly put his quadruple-world champion teammate under pressure, which eventually resulted in the team asking Sebastian Vettel to let Ricciardo pass.
Another interesting and exciting race weekend is on the cards. Can it live up to the thriller we got in Bahrain?
Join us at 4:30pm AEST for the build up of the race, which starts at 5:00pm AEST.
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