The Chinese Grand Prix is the third round of the 2011 Grand Prix season. If the first two rounds are anything to go by, we could have a runaway champion…
Unfortunately, Red Bull do seem to be the fastest team and Mark Webber doesn’t look like matching team-mate Vettel. Vettel is looking in dominating form, a run stretching from the end of last season, and so he must surely be the hot favourite to pick up a second title this year. Still, with seventeen – possible eighteen – rounds left this season, there’s still time for things to change.
So we move on to China. This is a race that is often rain-affected. The weather for this year predicts some rain on Saturday, possibly during qualifying, but the likelihood is that the race will be dry. The track also has a very long back straight – over a kilometre in length – for which the DRS will be active for 902 metres before the hairpin. This will be interesting.
In terms of fastest/slowest teams, I don’t expect much change in order. Red Bull will likely be fastest. McLaren have some updates, which they will hope close the gap to Red Bull. We’ll see. They should still be ahead of Ferrari, who seem to be expecting another difficult race. Renault will fancy their chances of dicing with Alonso and Massa again, and it will be interesting to see if they can finish ahead again. I suspect Alonso will sneak ahead of Heidfeld and Petrov; where Massa finishes is probably a better indication of the Ferrari’s pace in comparison to Renault.
Mercedes had another very disappointing showing in Malaysia. Their pace from Barcelona seems to have disappeared. They are well and truly in the midfield, with little hope of breaking into podiums any time soon. They are looking like the fifth-fastest team right now, which must be a huge disappointment. Disappointing too are Williams, who are yet to finish a race and would be looking to race Mercedes in the lower end of the points.
Kamui Kobayashi scored some very useful points last time out to show Sauber really do have good pace. The last few points will be fought for heavily by these teams, but I think Toro Rosso and Force India will struggle to get in the mix on this. Lotus, Virgin and HRT will bring up the rear, likely in that order. So, on to my picks for China:
- Pole: Sebastian Vettel
- Sebastian Vettel
- Mark Webber
- Lewis Hamilton
Vettel won in 2009 in the wet, and has been on pole here the last two years. Given the form he’s been in recently, it’s hard to go for anyone else for pole. In the race, as long as he has no problems and gets through turn one in the lead, it’s also hard to look past him. Behind, I’m picking Webber to finally get his act together, and for Hamilton to pip Button, Alonso and Heidfeld to the final step on the podium in a tight battle, at a circuit that should be too hard on tyres, certainly not as bad as Malaysia. I think most teams will look to make two stops. Now watch as my predictions fail spectacularly, like in the last ten laps in Malaysia…