China – Race: Imperial, Rosberg succeeds Fangio

It is under a temperature of 22°C and a clear sky that the drivers line up on the starting grid after the warm-up lap, with Nico Rosberg placing his W03 in pole position, next to his teammate, Michael Schumacher. Only Jean-Eric Vergne is missing from the grid, the Frenchman starting from the pits.

At the lights out, the Mercedes drivers get the perfect start while Button takes third place ahead of Kimi Räikkönen and Lewis Hamilton. Kamui Kobayashi finds himself under threat from Perez and Webber, who overtakes Fernando Alonso. In the slipstream, the Ferrari driver regains his position on the long straight as Sebastian Vettel, at the end of the first lap, is only in fourteenth place. At the start, Bruno Senna clips a piece of carbon from his front wing as he crashes his Williams into the rear of Felipe Massa’s F2012.

At the front, the Mercedes drivers kept themselves safe from DRS by building up a sufficient lead, with Nico Rosberg clocking the fastest laps. Behind them, Sebastian Vettel complained about his top speed, which prevented him from overtaking Paul Di Resta’s Force India, in 13th position.

In the 7th lap, Mark Webber anticipates his first pit stop to switch to hard tires and, although rejoining in 20th position, claims the fastest lap in the race. In the 10th lap, Kobayashi, Vettel, and Hülkenberg mimic the Australian. Kimi Räikkönen also makes his pit stop, while Hamilton, opting for soft tires, takes advantage of this to get ahead of the Finn as Mark Webber exits the pit and positions himself between the two drivers. The Lotus driver immediately attempts a maneuver on his Red Bull counterpart, who tenaciously holds his position.

On the 13th lap, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso come into the pits to switch to hard tires. The German comes out behind Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren and the Spaniard behind Räikkönen’s Lotus. However, Michael Schumacher will not go further, as the German is forced to retire right after his pit stop due to a loose wheel. Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg enters the pit lane to put on medium tires, coming out in third position behind Sergio Perez and Felipe Massa who remain on track.

Faced with the lap times achieved by Nico Rosberg, Sergio Perez goes through the pits to switch to medium tires, relinquishing the lead to Felipe Massa. The Mexican comes back out in 10th position, behind Romain Grosjean and Sebastian Vettel. On the track, Nico Rosberg retakes the lead by overtaking Massa as the drivers on medium tires are posting times similar to those of the McLaren drivers, who are on soft tires.

On the 19th lap, Felipe Massa stops in the pits to switch to medium tires, with only the Marussia drivers not having changed their tires yet. Leader Nico Rosberg is ahead of Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber, Kimi Räikkönen, Fernando Alonso, Kamui Kobayashi, Romain Grosjean, Sebastian Vettel, and Sergio Perez, who made a small mistake that the Red Bull driver took advantage of.

On the 22nd lap, Mark Webber stops to fit a new set of hard tires, followed on the next lap by Lewis Hamilton. The Englishman comes out behind Felipe Massa and gets stuck, despite the DRS. The McLaren driver thus finds himself under threat from Mark Webber, with both losing time on the race leaders. On the 26th lap, Hamilton finally overtakes the Ferrari before the Brazilian yields at the same spot on the following lap to Webber’s attacks.

After starting from the pits, Jean-Eric Vergne is in 15th place, ahead of his teammate.

Third, after the McLaren drivers’ pit stops, Fernando Alonso comes in to put on soft tires on the 28th lap. Romain Grosjean temporarily finds himself on the podium, even benefiting from Kimi Räikkönen’s pit stop [mediums] to move into second place: the Finn comes back out in 13th position… behind Fernando Alonso.

On lap 30, Jenson Button moves back onto the podium and is 18 seconds behind Nico Rosberg, who still needs to change tires. On the edge of the Top 10, Felipe Massa is asked to make things easier for Fernando Alonso, as both Ferrari drivers are on different strategies.

While Romain Grosjean goes through the pits, dropping to 12th position, Nico Rosberg extends his second stint, likely aiming for a two-stop strategy. On the 33rd lap, the German leads Button, Perez [also on an alternate strategy], Hamilton, Webber, Alonso, Massa, Räikkönen, Kobayashi, and Maldonado. Eleventh, Sebastian Vettel sets the fastest lap in the race.

Tired of wasting time behind Hamilton’s McLaren and Perez’s Sauber, Mark Webber once again anticipates his stop to put on a new set of medium tires. At the same time, Nico Rosberg exits the pits after making his second—and possibly last—stop: he is in second place, 9 seconds behind the new leader, Button, and ahead of Hamilton, Perez, and Alonso. But the Mexican makes his second stop and comes out in 13th place.

At the front of the race, Jenson Button inquires about the situation relative to Nico Rosberg. The British driver’s race engineer reassures him by saying that the German is conceding 7 tenths to him, but in reality, it’s Rosberg who is 7 tenths faster.

On the 39th lap, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso stopped together to switch to medium tires. The following lap, Jenson Button also came into the pits, but the stop was prolonged due to a problem with the left rear tire. The Briton re-emerged in sixth place, behind Räikkönen, Vettel, and Grosjean, 20 seconds behind the surviving Mercedes.

Nico Rosberg also benefits from the assistance of Felipe Massa who, in second place, still hasn’t stopped to change tires. But on the 42nd lap, the Brazilian finally stops. Nico Rosberg [2 stops] leads Räikkönen [2], Vettel [2], Button [3], Grosjean [2], Webber [3], Senna [2], Hamilton [3], Maldonado [2], and Alonso [3]. The Spaniard makes a mistake trying to overtake the Venezuelan’s Williams, as his car slips on the marbles left by the Pirelli tires. The Ferrari re-enters the track in a cavalier manner, narrowly missing a collision with Perez’s Sauber, which thus takes 10th place.

On the 45th lap, Romain Grosjean gets caught in the same way as the Ferrari driver when trying to fend off Webber’s attacks. The Frenchman falls back to 8th place, just ahead of Pastor Maldonado. The two drivers, who meet again after their skirmish at the Australian Grand Prix, don’t exchange pleasantries, their wheels touching before the Lotus driver gains the upper hand on the straight and maintains it at the exit of the hairpin.

In the lead, Nico Rosberg has a 25-second advantage and receives the instruction to take care of his car. Behind, less than 7 seconds separate Kimi Räikkönen, 2nd, from Fernando Alonso, 10th. Tensions are rising, with Hamilton attempting to overtake Webber in the first corner while Vettel gains the advantage over Räikkönen’s Lotus. The Finn is struggling with his tires and loses position after position, with Grosjean even managing to overtake the 2007 world champion. In his battle with Lewis Hamilton, and hindered by the struggling Lotus, Mark Webber makes a small mistake that the Brit takes advantage of.

In the DRS straight, the Sauber drivers are not giving each other any gifts right under the nose of Kimi Räikkönen, who has then dropped to 12th place.

In the lead, Nico Rosberg is heading towards his first victory. Behind him, the battle for second place continues to rage, with Button climbing to the second step of the podium at the expense of Vettel. The German, on a two-stop strategy, then finds himself under threat from Lewis Hamilton. However, the Englishman locks his wheels under braking and gives up some ground to the Red Bull driver. But the 2008 world champion soon becomes threatening again. On the 55th lap, the Briton takes the advantage over the German who does not give up easily, while Fernando Alonso is battling with Pastor Maldonado and Sergio Perez, the three drivers approaching the pit straight side by side. In the penultimate lap, Webber snatches 4th place from a struggling Vettel with his tires.

Under the checkered flag, Juan-Manuel Fangio finally finds a successor in Nico Rosberg, who secures his first Grand Prix victory. The German leads the two McLaren drivers and the two Red Bulls. In sixth place, Grosjean scores his first points in Formula One while his teammate slips to 14th place, with tires in agony. On the radio, Rosberg exults while the two McLaren drivers now lead the overall championship standings.

Results of the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix: