Formula 1: Chinese Grand Prix - Big Win for Mercedes

By dhanraj.kotian | April 16 2012 8:52 AM

What a perfect race by Nico Rosberg to claim the first win of his career from pole to finish.

Rosberg, the son of 1982 champion Keke, also scored the first win for Mercedes as an individual team since 1955. Mercedes left the sport in 1955 after the last race for them as a team ending in victory by Juan Manuel Fangio at the Italian Grand Prix. Mercedes brought the 2009 winning team Brawn GP in 2010 to set up an independent team, though they are engine partners to other teams. Team principal Ross Brawn was very happy with the result and this was evident when they were celebrating loudly on the radio.

Jenson Button finished second and teammate Lewis Hamilton third, who moved to the top of the overall Drivers standings. Button lost a few seconds on the final stop when he was held for a few more seconds while releasing his rear tire. This reflected when he finished 20 seconds adrift of Rosberg. Schumacher who started on the front row along with Rosberg, was unlucky when he had to retire from the race due to an ill fitted nut on his front tire. The Mercedes team were fined 5000 euros for the incident and this fine would have been more if Schumacher had not responded promptly and brought his car to a halt.

Webber and Vettel finished 4th and 5th respectively. Not a very good result as per the standards set by Red bull last season. Romain Grosjean scored his first points for the season for Lotus finishing 6th. The Williams of Bruno Senna and Pastor Maldonado finished 7th and 8th. Alonso, had a dismal race after finishing 9th. Kobayashi finished 10th to finish the points table.

Pos

Driver

Team

Laps

Time/Retired

Pts

Nico Rosberg

Mercedes

0.066978345

Jenson Button

McLaren-Mercedes

+20.6 secs