The Chinese GP perhaps underlined just how much the sport seems to have been thrown off-kilter. I'm not going to go into the result, there weren't any great surprises there. Sadly the race failed to live up to the excitement of the Bahrain GP two weeks ago. From the outset, however, things seemed a little under prepared.
Pastor Maldonado failed to get his car out in qualifying.
The McLarens completely failed to perform, both in qualifying and in the race.
The start was a bit messy, with a rare first corner bumps for Alonso and Rosberg (each hitting a Williams).
Kimi Räikkönen continued to be unable to drive his Ferrari, before giving a journalist questioning his motivation an expletive-laden defense of his performance.
The Williams pit crew apparently failed to tell right from left and scuppered Massa's race by attempting to put his tyres on the wrong wheels.
Vettel continued the trend of refusing to obey his team's instructions, telling teammate Ricciardo "tough luck" (before Ricciardo overtook him anyway).
An over-enthused marshall started waving the checkered flag during lap 54 (of 56) - officially ending the race early.
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| Picture credit: EPA |
Personally, I'm a fan of the new format F1, though the rules changes simply don't seem to have been implemented very well. The number of very public detractors coming from within the sport is troubling, as is the apparent situation that certain teams seem to be so focused on improving their performance that they've left basic elements like pit stops and driver discipline completely by the roadside. As the season heads to Europe in three weeks, fingers crossed that they manage to leave these embarrasing mishaps behind them so that focus returns to racing.
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