On Friday, Carazoo said that Force India, staying ahead of the Williams and STR, had seen its best season opener so far and would want to continue the excellent performance. Just three days, and we see the difference. Force India returned empty-handed from the Chinese Grand Prix yesterday. The team’s point-scoring streak encountered a sudden end in a messy Chinese Grand Prix. While Adrian Sutil finished 11th, his teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi retreated after an opening lap brake problem.Force India saw a real good start and achieved three positions in just the first corner. The way conditions panned out, it could have been a very interesting race. The drivers had to gamble with the rains. The tyres and positions kept changing because of the unstable rain conditions. Only 17 drivers brought home the car, the last being Hispania's Karun Chandhok. Great job, Karun Chandhok!
Karun, who started from pit lane, was delighted, and had to be, to finish yet another race. Because of a necessary change of hydraulic components on the car, he had to start from the pit lane and this change was profitable. The car remained fully operational until the end of the race. Karun said that it was a good outing for Hispania since both the cars made to the chequered flag. Despite having a difficult debut in Bahrain and the rains this time, Karun had finished his race yet again.
Vijay Mallya, the Force India chairman was extremely disappointed. He wanted the team to make more of the weather conditions and was saddened when the run of points ended suddenly. But, that is what happens; when the weather is so unpredictable, the game becomes unpredictable too. The adrenaline rush had finally slowed down.
Mallya hasn’t lost hopes though. He says, “We've got some work to do now that Renault has opened up a sizeable advantage but we have some developments in the pipeline and the season has a long way to run. We'll regroup and come back strongly in Spain I'm sure”. Now, that’s the spirit.
Sutil felt that strategy was crucial and thought things could have been a little different but for the last pit stop which cost him a couple of extra seconds. The sudden rains and sudden dry tracks made it very difficult to predict which the best tyre to be on was. It was all a game of strategy.
Sutil lost a couple of positions in that final stop. He dropped back to 13th. He just ran out of laps to get past Michael Schumacher when they were actually close to within a second of Schumacher. That's how it is. You sometimes win in these races, and sometimes, it just doesn't go your way.
Liuzzi too was upset after seeing a premature end to his race. He spun his Force India into Kamui Kobayashi's BMW Sauber and Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso, bringing out the safety car. He had a problem warming up the brakes on the formation lap due to the cold and the rain. And then, unfortunately, the rear completely locked when he went into corner four on the first lap and braked. He lost control of the car and went off.
The nail-biting race saw the McLaren team at the top. While McLaren’s Jenson Button won the race, teammate Lewis Hamilton trailed close behind finishing second. Jenson Button took his second victory of the year by controlling a hectic, wet Chinese Grand Prix. He kept his head in tricky conditions and even stretched away from McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton in the closing stages when it came down to who had looked after their tyres the best.
Rosberg couldn't quite challenge for victory, but racing ahead of Fernando Alonso, he had no trouble coming third. The Spaniard managed to finish third despite five pitstops, including a drive-through for jumping the start.
Labels: BMW, Car-Race, Car-Racing, Chinese-Grand-Prix, Force-India, Grand-Prix, Karun- Chandhok, Michael-Schumacher
