Christian Horner, Team Principal: "I think the wet conditions in qualifying yesterday helped us get higher starting positions up the grid. In today's dry race, ultimately fourth and fifth is realistically where we were this weekend. Mercedes again were particularly strong and Ferrari carried their form through from Friday into a dry race today. Sebastian made a great start, but then appeared to go through the tyres quicker than Daniel and, after the second stop, it was apparent Seb's degradation was particularly worse than Daniel, so we looked at switching him to a three-stop and therefore released Daniel who was very much focused on a two-stop at that point. Thereafter Daniel was able to close the gap to Alonso, but unfortunately we didn't have enough to get onto the podium today. Fourth and fifth is still a solid result with good points. Heading back to Europe we know we have a lot of work to do."
Thierry Salvi, Renault: "Again a race where both drivers had to work a lot to stay close to the front. Seb had a decent start but nevertheless had to fight against Alonso, while Daniel had an issue on his start but was able to make his way back to the front. A step has been made in terms of energy management compared to Sakhir, but it's obviously not enough to come back to where Red Bull has to be. A lot of work is on-going at Viry to be at the top of the energy balance and trade-offs between the ICE and the ERS and we are looking forward to running at Barcelona to extract even more from the power units."
Lewis drove a lights-to-flag victory to claim his 4th win for the team and the 17th for the Silver Arrows in Formula One. Lewis achieved the milestone of 25 career wins, equalling Niki Lauda and Jim Clark, and putting him 8th on the all-time list. Lewis used a two-stop strategy, stopping on laps 17 and 38, running option/prime/prime. Nico drove a composed race after a complete failure of the team's telemetry system left his engineers without data throughout the race. Nico also ran two stops, pitting on laps 13 and 37, also running option/prime/prime.
Toto Wolff: The result today looks easier than it actually was. It was a difficult race after losing telemetry on Nico's car, which shows how much of an exceptional race he drove considering this was a big limitation. From the beginning, Lewis was a man on his own planet, looking quicker than everyone else and making the tyres last longer than we thought. It's a great result for the team to get the third 1-2 in a row - congratulations to all the guys and girls who have worked so hard to put us at this level of performance today. Now we are aiming to continue this good form going into the European season.
Paddy Lowe: We're very happy with the result today; it was a great team performance. Even before the race started, the laps to the grid were very important to perfect the balance of the car. It wasn't an easy start as we quickly learned that Nico had no telemetry on his car, which we knew would make life difficult. Lewis made a good getaway but Nico suffered off the line and also ran into contact at the first corner as well. He survived that undamaged and did a fantastic job to make his way back from sixth, using a combination of pit stop strategy and the pace of the car. Graining of the front tyres had been a worry before the race, but both drivers managed the situation very well which was an important factor in our race result. Congratulations to Lewis on his third victory in a row for the first time in his career.
Pat Fry: "Today's result is a reward for the effort that all the team is putting into every area. Both drivers got away well, managing to make up two places immediately and, luckily the collision between Fernando and Felipe Massa's Williams left the F14 T undamaged. In the first stint, with Kimi we lost a bit of time behind Grosjean and that prevented him from making up ground on his rivals, in a race where tyre degradation and graining played an important role. The choice made at Fernando's first stop saw him take second place: from then on, we concentrated on managing the gap to the Red Bull and tried to keep Rosberg behind us for as long as possible. This weekend we made some progress and in general, the speed of the car has increased, both in the corners and on the straights, but we have to be realistic about our current potential and continue working, because the gap to Mercedes is still big and no one within our team has any intention of giving up."
Pastor Maldonado finished in fourteenth position whilst Romain Grosjean was forced to retire from the Chinese Grand Prix on lap 28 because of a gearbox problem. Romain made the team's first top ten start of 2014 and was fighting for points before his early exit, whilst Pastor made eight positions during the course of the race after having started from back of the grid due to engine-related issues forcing him to miss Saturday's qualifying.
Romain started from tenth position on new soft compound tyres, changing to new medium tyres on lap nine. He retired from the race with 28 laps completed. Pastor started from 22nd position on new soft tyres, changing to new mediums on laps 11 and 32.
Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: "For Romain it was another frustrating day but we can see there is clear progress as he qualified and was racing in the top ten for points. For Pastor, it was a tough day as he was forced to start from the back due to yesterday's problems, but he delivered everything we wanted from him with some strong lap times during the course of his race. We took another step forward in terms of pace here and we are pushing for another step forward in Barcelona."
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: "Romain suffered from a gearbox issue which meant he lost fourth gear and then other gears meaning his race could not continue. Obviously, this is not ideal and we're investigating the cause. It's a shame as Romain had been running reasonably well in the points and able to race his rivals, and a points finish was realistic. Pastor did a great job from the back of the grid to finish in fourteenth. For Barcelona we have more upgrades for the chassis and engine so we should be more competitive there."
Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader: "We've made some real progress this weekend and for the first time since Melbourne we could show we had the pace for points, which is why today is so disappointing. We have identified some further development with the power unit here so with the three weeks between this race and Spain we'll work with the team to capitalise on the potential."
That was a difficult weekend for the whole McLaren team. After qualifying 12th (Jenson) and 15th (Kevin), both drivers struggled in the midfield throughout the race. Kevin was the sole starter on the Prime tyre, running until lap 17 before making his stop for Options. Jenson was the first runner to stop, after complaining of graining during his first stint - he changed from Options to Primes on lap seven.
Both drivers pushed back into the fray to run 13th and 14th at half-distance. Two further stops (Jenson, Primes, on lap 28; Kevin, Primes, on lap 31) saw the order settle with Jenson running 11th, chasing Daniil Kvyat, and Kevin in 13th, trying to close down Jean-Eric Vergne.
"I know the guys back in Woking are doing their best, and I have faith that they'll deliver that downforce before too long."
Eric Boullier, Racing Director: "Our car isn't competitive enough, we know that, its deficiencies mostly the consequence of insufficient downforce. Furthermore, the Shanghai circuit is front-limited - in other words it punishes lack of front-end grip. That being the case, the fact that we've been unable to get sufficient heat into our front tyres in the chilly weather conditions we've experienced this weekend has further compromised our performance here.
"There's a three-week gap between now and the Spanish Grand Prix, and we'll work flat-out between now and then in an effort to address our car's shortcomings. We know what we have to do, and we'll work night and day to do it."
Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: "Coming away from China with another ten points in our pocket and third place in the teams' standings is a very good effort. We never expected Shanghai to be our strongest track so I think we can feel pretty satisfied with our performance over the entire weekend. Nico's race was relatively straightforward and we judged the tyre strategy correctly as he held off Bottas in the final stint. Sergio staged a strong recovery drive to move up into the points, which was a good effort when you consider he has not felt completely comfortable with the car balance this weekend. To have 54 points after four races is an excellent effort and we can be pleased with the consistency we have shown over a variety of different circuits."
Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: "Of course it's a shame that Adrian suffered an engine problem after only a few laps and was never really able to get into the race. In Esteban's case, we have to analyse everything in order to understand why the rear tyres suddenly lost so much grip. We are obviously not happy with this kind of performance. We are going through a tough time, but this is no reason for us to bury our heads in the sand. We need to continue working in a very focused way and make sure we get the maximum from our development package for the next race in Barcelona."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering: "This was obiously not the the result we wanted. For Adrian, the race was over before it had really started. His car suffered a major engine problem, which Ferrari will have to investigate. For Esteban, the beginning of the race was quite okay. He started on the soft tyres, and, as expected, they grained. Then on the medium tyre things went quite well in the beginning, but from lap 25 on the rear tyres lost grip massively, which forced us to change from the planned two stop strategy to three stops. We have to analyse what exactly was the problem. The only chance we had was to get the maximum from the new tyres, but the performance was simply not good enough today."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "Daniil did another fantastic race, with his lap times always quite competitive. To start from the 13th position on the grid and bring home one point certainly shows the good performance. Jean-Eric had a poor start, which compromised his race and didn't allow him to finish with a better result. We have to find out the reasons for this, in order to be better prepared for the next race in Barcelona, where we will have some new parts that will hopefully help us improve our general performance."
Ricardo Penteado (Renault Sport F1 track support leader): "Another strong points finish for Daniil, who did a very good job from 13th on the grid. JEV lost some places at the start. We did our best with the power unit, but his strategy became very difficult in the traffic and it was hard to make progress. It's a shame as we had the pace for points with both cars but we'll try again in Spain."
Valtteri Bottas finished seventh and Felipe Massa 15th in the Chinese Grand Prix. Felipe had a great start but then had contact with a defending Fernando Alonso, whilst Valtteri was hit by Nico Rosberg who was braking hard in response to the action ahead. Felipe recovered to sixth with Valtteri in eighth before the first round of pitstops but a problem in Felipe's first pitstop then dropped him to the back of the field. Valtteri meanwhile chased the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg eventually finishing just half a second behind, as Felipe fought hard to gain positions back to 15th.
Rob Smedley, Head of Vehicle Performance: It's bittersweet really as the car was quick. We had a good strategy and the team worked well together. It's a real shame for Felipe and the whole team about the pitstop and it is something that we need to investigate to ensure it doesn't happen again, as it cost us points today. To have one car in the top ten shows that we have the pace and that gives us continued optimism, so we will take the positives forward to Spain.
In today's 2014 Formula 1 UBS Chinese Grand Prix, the Marussia F1 Team delivered a strong two-car finish with Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton each keeping a Caterham at bay to the chequered flag, ending the race in 17th and 19th positions respectively.
The result marks Max's 23rd finish in 23 races, a day before he celebrates his 23rd birthday. Further underlining a generally positive race, Max also recorded the fastest lap of the Marussia-Caterham battle.
John Booth, Team Principal: "A good result today with Jules leading home Kobayashi and Max finishing in front of Ericsson also. In reality, today we didn't quite have the pace to match Kobayashi but an inspired strategy allowed us to stay ahead of him. It took some nerve on the pit wall and also very good tyre management and race craft from Jules to stay ahead. Max struggled a little more with the left front wear on the medium tyre than Jules but ultimately he was doing enough to be in front of Ericsson. However with the opportunity to still remain ahead of him with an extra stop at the end, we decided to put Max onto a three-stop strategy. It's good to be leaving the flyaway races still in 10th and we have shown very good reliability in this early part of season. The focus for Barcelona and Monaco will be to introduce our new upgrades and really start to focus on performance."
Claudio Albertini, Head of Customer Teams Power Unit Operations, Scuderia Ferrari: "It was a positive weekend in terms of reliability, which is always the necessary starting point to be able to do a better job of supporting the team. We introduced from this Grand Prix a package of improvements which provided the expected results but we know there is still much to be done in this area. Race after race also improves the integration of our group of engineers and mechanics with the team, which also produces the effects in terms of performance. We must all continue along this path."
Cedrik Staudohar, Renault Sport F1 track support leader: "Today we had no issues on the Power Unit side and worked with the team to get the maximum performance possible. The final result is not exactly what we wanted to achieve but we'll take advantage of the three weeks between Shanghai and Barcelona to work on performance and help the team deliver in the European season."
A number of different tyre strategy options were available before the Chinese Grand Prix, but the very strong performance of the medium tyre in the second stint allowed the top 15 to complete two stops only on one of the most demanding circuits of the year.
With some very long corners and high g-forces, the Shanghai circuit exerted unique demands on the front-left tyre in particular. But the additional durability of the 2014-specification P Zero tyres allowed Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton to take his third consecutive victory from four races, with just two pit stops, as opposed to three stops that formed the winning strategy in China last year.
Hamilton built his victory from pole by making the set of soft tyres that he started the race with last for longer than his direct rivals. He then completed a long second stint on the medium tyre, which was essential to his two-stop strategy, and that of the other drivers. As a result Hamilton could finish the race on the medium tyre again after just one more pit stop, to win by 18.6 seconds. This was the Englishman's 25th race win, equalling the benchmark set by his boss Niki Lauda, as well as Scottish legend Jim Clark.
The cool temperatures, constantly below 20 degrees ambient, and very demanding nature of the track meant that three stops were a strong possibility, with many teams keeping their options open. But the increased durability of this year's Pirelli tyres made two stops the norm, thanks to versatile strategies from the teams. Ambient temperatures of 18 degrees and track temperatures of 21 degrees were much less than those seen last year: 28 and 40 degrees respectively.
McLaren's Kevin Magnussen was the only driver to start the race on the P Zero White medium tyre, while the other drivers all started on the P Zero Yellow soft.
Formula One now heads to Europe, with the second two-day in-season test of the year taking place after the Spanish Grand Prix. Sauber and Toro Rosso will be testing 2015 tyres for Pirelli on the opening day of the test, followed by Force India and McLaren on day two.
Paul Hembery: "After a wet qualifying session yesterday, all the drivers had their full allocation of slick tyres for the race. From the beginning the strategies were open: it was going to be either a two or three stop race, with the performance of the soft tyre in the first stint as well as the medium tyre in the second stint holding the key to each driver's potential. Once it was clear that a slight increase in track temperature today wasn't going to have a significant effect in terms of graining on the soft tyre, the teams concentrated on the main race tyre: the medium. Temperatures generally throughout this weekend have been low - among the lowest we have seen during a race weekend over the last three years - and as a result we did see some graining on the soft tyre in particular, which also caused a few marbles on the back straight. That's not something we like to see, but under the circumstances, it was to be expected. Degradation on the medium tyre was less than a tenth of a second per lap here, while degradation on the soft was just over two-tenths of a second."
Our fastest prediction for the 56-lap race was start on soft, change to soft again on lap 14 and then to medium on lap 28. We also suggested an alternative two-stop strategy: start on soft, change to medium on lap 12, then medium again on lap 34. The latter proved to be the winning choice. Hamilton stopped for the first time on lap 17 for mediums and then again for more mediums on lap 38.
