Button wins epic Chinese GP!

Jenson Button won an epic Chinese GP, on Sunday afternoon, at the Shanghai International Circuit.

The Briton led a McLaren-Mercedes one-two as his teammate Lewis Hamilton crossed the finish line in 2nd place. Nico Rosberg joined them on the podium as pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel finished in sixth position.

The engineers and drivers were given a hard time this afternoon with rain playing with their minds throughout the race.

It was slightly raining at the start of the race, leading almost the entire field to keep slick tyres on. As both Red Bulls took off cautiously, it was Fernando Alonso who was leading after Turn One… but it turned out he had jumped the start and he subsequently had to serve a drive through penalty.

Tonio Liuzzi lost the rear of his Force India in the very first lap, taking Kobayahashi and Buemi out of the race. This accident brought the Safety Car out and, as the rain was getting a bit heavier, most of the field opted to rush into the pits to put intermediate tyres on.

Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button and Robert Kubica crucially opted to stay out on their slick tyres and found themselves in the lead when the Safety Car went in at the end of lap four. This proved the right move as the rain soon eased off and the other drivers had to pit again a few laps later to revert to slick tyres.

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel had a bit of coming together in the pitlane – an incident which was due to be investigated after the race. The German took the advantage only to lose it a few laps later. Both of them made their way up the field and were up in P5 and P6 when the rain got heavier once again.

Rosberg lost the lead to Button on lap 19 as he slid off track. He rejoined behind the World Champion. There was a new rush in the pits on laps 20 and 21 with intermediate tyres the preferred choice for the drivers.

A damaged front wing on his Toro Rosso forced Jaime Alguersuari to have an extra stop at the end of lap 21… and the Safety Car was deployed in order for the track marshalls to collect some debris from the Spaniard’s wing.

This played in the hands of Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and both Red Bull drivers as it allowed them to close a 50 seconds gap to the leaders. The Safety Car came in on lap 25. Hamilton set an impressive pace from this point and moved up from P5 to P3. Vettel found himself down in P8 at the restart and struggled to pass Adrian Sutil’s Force India.

There was a last batch of pitstops between laps 36 and 39. Rosberg lost his second place to Hamilton in the process and had to settle for third. Hamilton tried to put some pressure on Button but the leader stayed cool and controlled the return of his teammate.

He eventually crossed the finish line 1.5 second ahead of Hamilton.

Despite his drive through penalty, Fernando Alonso finished the race in a positive fourth place. It was another good race from Robert Kubica who held off to fifth place ahead of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. There was more joy in the Renault camp with a brilliant seventh place from Vitaly Petrov.

Mark Webber was eighth. Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher completed the top ten.

Seventeen drivers saw the chequered flag.