I had my stomach full of butterflies when the lights went out and the race was on! Nico on pole got a dream start and was able to maintain his lead and was followed by his team-mate Schumacher. McLaren´s Button benefitted the most at the start and was able to go from P5 to third. Kimi in his Lotus was able to overtake Kobayashi but was overtaken by Button so he was able to keep P4. Luckily there were no collisions in the first turns but Vettel being far back in P14 made me really nervous...
I was actually pretty surprised by Mercedes´s race pace! I had expected them to suffer from tyre degradation like in two previous races but that wasn´t the case this time! Nico was able to pull a clear gap to his rivals. Schumi was driving a very strong race as well until the first pit stop cost him dearly. He had a problem with his front right tyre not being properly attached and he had to retire the race soon after leaving the pits. Such a shame, Schumi would probably have brought some valuable points for Mercedes today!
Yesterday I wrote that I hoped to see an entertaining race. Entertaining it indeed was! :) Lots of close and intense wheel-to-wheel battle. Fair play and no rude manoeuvres or any hand gestures! I would say that we saw a whole new Hamilton on the track today! He enjoyed some good battles as well. I must say I felt kind of worried to see him challenging Massa after all those las year´s collisions but I was positively surprised to see a clean overtake by Lewis! And overtaking is something that Hamilton seems to be really good at!
After the first pit stops it seemed that Button in his McLaren had a good chance to challenge Nico for victory. But Button´s hope for victory vanished into thin air in his third pit stop. The Briton lost some 9-10 seconds in the pits due to a problem with the rear of his car. However, Button finished the race second followed by his team-mate Hamilton, who was able to get past Vettel at the end of the race.
In spite of Kimi´s decent start to the race his day was full of setbacks. Kimi´s race pace was convincing but strategy-wise it was far from a perfect race! Kimi lost positions in his both pit stops so his only chance for a points finish was to try to finish the race without pitting the third time. And everything looked sooooo good when there were only 10 laps to go. Nico was leading the race on some 20 seconds´ margin but Kimi was 2nd! Vettel was right behind him, so were the McLaren drivers... I kept my fingers crossed down to my elboes that Kimi´s tyres would last the closing laps... But they didn´t! With 8 more laps to go Vettel was able to overtake Kimi which lead to Kimi losing 10 positions in just two laps! What a catastophic outcome for Kimi! :( Finally he finished the race 14th not scoring any points... I can only imagine how Kimi must feel at the moment. I mean the Iceman wasn´t satisfied with his 4th place at the qualifying yesterday and I´m sure he had high hopes for the race... But this is motor racing, bitter disappointments are unfortunately part of it sometimes :(
Right after this I knew Vettel would soon be in trouble, too! And in no time both Button and Hamilton managed to get past the struggling German... Even Vettel´s team-mate Webber managed to overtake him on the very final lap! I´m sure Webber enjoyed every second of his move after being humiliated so thoroughly by Vettel during last season! Grosjean made Lotus´s day by finishing 6th and scoring valuable points for the team.
After round three it´s Hamilton who is leading the drivers´championship with 45 points. His team-mate Button is only 2 points behind. Vettel is still down in 5th place but I´m counting on Red Bull that there´ll be improvement on the way! The FIA has confirmed that there will be a race at Bahrain next weekend... I certainly have my suspicions that it will actually happen but let´s wait and see... Now it´s time to breathe after such a colourful and eventful race!
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