Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg has won a crazy Chinese Grand Prix full of overtakes and collisions to claim his third win of 2016.
Despite Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo taking the lead at the start from the front row of the grid, the Australian suffered a puncture on the fourth lap which allowed Rosberg to take the lead. The Safety Car then came out on lap five until lap 10, but after this Rosberg never looked back and won by a massive 37 seconds.
It is his sixth consecutive win and 17th career win, with the German now surpassing Sir Stirling Moss as the driver with the most wins without a world championship to their name. He now holds a 36-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship over teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Sebastian Vettel finished second for Ferrari, despite a dramatic start to the race that saw Vettel and his teammate Kimi Raikkonen collide and sustain front wing damage. Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat had a superb drive to third to claim his second career podium and first since last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix. However, during and after the race, Vettel was convinced that Kvyat had caused the first lap Ferrari chaos with a “suicidal” move.
Ricciardo recovered from the early puncture to claim a third fourth place finish of the season ahead of Raikkonen.
Williams’ Felipe Massa held off Hamilton to claim sixth, with the Mercedes driver recovering the race with an unconventional five-stop strategy from 22nd on the grid. The first stop was caused by needing a front wing change after colliding with Sauber’s Felipe Nasr on the opening lap when the Brazilian tried to avoid Raikkonen. He tried and struggled to get past Massa in the closing stages, which the team put down to the damage sustained on the first lap.
Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen finished eighth ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz in ninth. Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top 10.
Sergio Perez finished as the first of the drivers outside of the points in 11th, ahead of the McLaren’s of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. Esteban Gutierrez finally ended his run of bad luck and reached the chequered flag to claim 14th for Haas.
Perez’s teammate Nico Hulkenberg finished 15th and received a five-second time penalty during the race for driving unnecessarily slowly into the pit lane when a number of cars were desperate to pit under the safety car, an incident which saw Vettel complete a dramatic overtake. Marcus Ericsson came home in 16th, with Kevin Magnussen 17th for Renault and Pascal Wehrlein 18th for Manor.
Romain Grosjean struggled with his Haas car, and despite wanting to retire the car near the end, finished 19th ahead of Nasr and Manor’s Rio Haryanto. This is the first time in Haas’ short history that they have failed to finish a race in the points. Renault’s Jolyon Palmer finished 22nd and last.
Despite the calamitous nature of the race, every car finished and was classified in the race, the sixth time this has happened in Formula One history and the first since the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix.
