Your guide to the 2017 Chinese Grand Prix

The Chinese Grand Prix is currently held at the Shanghai International Circuit, designed by Hermann Tilke. The track features one of the trickiest corners combinations on the Formula One calendar, comparable to that of Istanbul Park’s turn 8, also designed by Tilke. Turn 1 and 2 are a very demanding 270 degree, right-handed corner combination that requires a lot of speed whilst entering and it tightens up towards the end.

 

Chinese Grand Prix, Round 1 of the 2017 Formula 1 season

 

Circuit Name: Shanghai International Circuit (Permanent Circuit)

Race Laps: 56

Circuit Length: 5.451 km (3.387 mi)

Race Length: 305.066 km (189.559 mi)

Number of corners: 16 (9 Right, 7 Left)

DRS Zone: Two Zones (Zone 1 Between turn 13 and 14, zone 2 at the Start/Finish Line Between Turn 16 and 1)

Circuit Direction: Clockwise

Pole Position 2015: Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes 1:35.782

Track Record: Michael Scumacher – Ferrari 2004 (Pole): 1”35.782.

 

Pirelli used compounds

For the first 5 round of the 2017 Formula 1 season, Pirelli will supply all teams with the same sets of compounds, following the introduction on the new wider and bigger tires.

Compounds sets will be as follows:

7 of the softest (P Zero Red supersoft here)

5 of the middle (Zero Yellow Soft here)

2 of the Hardest (P Zero White Medium here)

Tyres that must be available (one of them to be used) at some point in the race:

One set of P Zero Yellow soft

One set of P Zero Red Super-Soft

 

Tyres assigned for Q3 in qualifying:                     

One set of P Zero Red Super-Soft

THE CIRCUIT FROM A TYRE POINT OF VIEW:

MARIO ISOLA – HEAD OF CAR RACING

“We’re bringing the middle selection of compounds, but we expect teams to use mainly soft and supersoft, depending of course on the unpredictable weather: especially as the allocation is just two sets of medium. In the past, there has been some graining in China due to the long straights followed by tight corners, but we’ve seen in Barcelona testing that graining is generally reduced this year, so it will be good to have that confirmed. In case of wet and possibly cool conditions, we will supply wet weather tyres in a different compound, with the target of giving the drivers more grip.” 

Chinese Grand Prix Winners 2004 – 2016

 

Year	Driver	Constructor
2016	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
2015	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes
2014	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes
2013	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari
2012	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
2011	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes
2010	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes
2009	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault
2008	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes
2007	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari
2006	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
2005	Fernando Alonso	Renault
2004	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari

 

Multiple Winners (Drivers)

 

# Wins	Driver	Years Won
4	Lewis Hamilton	2008, 2011, 2014, 2015
2	Fernando Alonso	2005, 2013
	Nico Rosberg	2012, 2016

 

Multiple Winners (Constructors)

 

# Wins	Constructor	Years Won
4	Ferrari	2004, 2006, 2007, 2013
	Mercedes	2012, 2014, 2015, 2016
3	McLaren	2008, 2010, 2011

 

Numbers and Facts

 

Most wins (driver) 4 Lewis Hamilton 2008 – 2011 – 2014 – 2015

Most wins (constructor) 4 Ferrari 2004 – 2006 – 2007 – 2013 and Mercedes 2012 – 2014 – 2015 – 2016

Wins from pole position 8 2004 – 2005 – 2008 – 2009 – 2012 – 2014 – 2015 – 2016

Lowest grid for past winner 6 Michael Schumacher – 2006

Most recent 1-2 finish 2015 Mercedes – Lewis Hamilton-Nico Rosberg

Most emphatic win (here) 37.776 2016 – Nico Rosberg-Sebastian Vettel

Closest winning margin 0.714 2015 – Lewis Hamilton-Nico Rosberg

Rain-affected races 4 2006 – 2007 – 2009 – 2010

Safety Car-affected races 5 2005 – 2009 – 2010 – 2015 – 2016

Red Flag (and result declared) races 0

2-hour rule shortened races 0

Fastest race 2004 56 laps @ 1hr 29m 12.420s

Slowest race (here) 2009 56 laps @ 1hr 57m 43.485s

Most pole positions (driver) 5 Lewis Hamilton 2007 – 2008 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015

Most pole positions (constructor) 5 Mercedes 2012 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015 – 2016

 

What Happened last race here?

The race was the third round of the 2016 season, and marked the thirteenth time that the Chinese Grand Prix has been run as a round of the Formula One World Championship.

The race was convincingly won by Nico Rosberg, who finished over 30 seconds ahead of second-placed Sebastian Vettel.

Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton suffered a number of setbacks both in qualifying and during the race itself, eventually finishing in 7th place.

This was the first race in which all cars were classified as finishers since the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix.

2016 Race Classification

Pos.	Driver	Constructor	Time/Retired	Grid
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38:53.891	1
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	+37.776	4
3	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer	+45.936	6
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer	+52.688	2
5	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	+1:05.872	3
6	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	+1:15.511	10
7	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+1:18.230	22
8	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	+1:19.268	9
9	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	+1:24.127	8
10	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	+1:26.192	5
11	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	+1:34.283	7
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	+1:37.253	11
13	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	+1:41.990	12
14	Esteban Gutiérrez	Haas-Ferrari	+1 Lap	18
15	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	+1 Lap	13
16	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	+1 Lap	15
17	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	+1 Lap	17
18	Pascal Wehrlein	MRT-Mercedes	+1 Lap	21
19	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	+1 Lap	14
20	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	+1 Lap	16
21	Rio Haryanto	MRT-Mercedes	+1 Lap	20
22	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	+1 Lap	19

 

Did you know?

DRIVERS

✪ Sebastian Vettel has only taken pole once for Ferrari, in Singapore 2015

Vettel has not won back-to-back Grand Prix since he won the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix. That race ended a 9-race run of victories that started in Belgium, (BEL, ITA, SIN,

KOR, JAP, IND, ABU, USA, BRA)

✪ Lewis Hamilton is just 6 pole positions from equalling Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68 F1 GP pole positions. Since he has been at Mercedes he has taken

pole 36 times already. That is over 40% of all races he’s started for the team (36/ 79 = 45.6%)

✪ Hamilton in China can = Alain Prost’s 106 F1 podiums. Only Michael Schumacher has achieved more podiums (155)

✪ Hamilton has won (53) 28.0% of all GP he’s started (189) and is in the top 10 drivers races to win ratio of all-time. This is how he compares:-

1. Fangio 47.0%, 2. Ascari 40.6%, 3. Clark 34.7%, 4. M. Schumacher 29.7%, 5. Hamilton 28.0% 6. Ja. Stewart 27.2% 7. Prost 25.6% 8. A. Senna 25.5%, 9. S. Moss 24.2%
2. Vettel 24.0% (43/ 179)

✪ Hamilton has now led 100 different F Grand Prix races

✪ Before Valtteri Bottas Hamilton has had 4 different teammates in F1. Fernando Alonso, Heikki Kovalainen, Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg. Of the 4 Alonso is now the

only one left racing in F1

✪ Bottas has now scored more F1 points (426) than team boss Niki Lauda (420.5)

✪ China could mark the 125th F1 event he has taken part in, since Kimi Raikkonen last took pole position (France 2008)

✪ Sergio Perez needs just 1 more podium to become the Mexican driver with the most F1 podiums (currently =1 with Pedro Rodriguez on 7)

✪ Perez after Australia now has the longest current run of points-scoring finishes of any of the F1 drivers (11 races). The all-time record is 27 by Raikkonen

✪ Australia marked the 100th F1 event that Nico Hulkenberg has competed in since he took his first and only to date, F1 pole position (Brazil 2010)

 

AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

✪ Only Lewis Hamilton has won more than 2 Chinese Grand Prix. He has won the race 4 times to date

✪ If Hamilton leads this year’s race he will have led more Chinese Grand Prix (7) than any other driver. The current record of 6 races led is shared by Hamilton and Jenson

Button

 

CONSTRUCTORS

✪ Ferrari last season was the only team to score championship points at all 21 events

✪ It is now a fact that both Ferrari drivers scored their most recent F1 wins in Australia; Vettel two week’s ago and Kimi Raikkonen (for Lotus) in 2013

✪ Mercedes in China will be aiming to lockout the front row for the 48th time. The all-time record is 62 and is jointly held by McLaren and Williams

✪ 93.75% of all Mercedes’s wins to date have come from front row starts (60/ 64)

✪ China will be venue for Mercedes’s 150th F1 World Championship race start as a constructor

✪ China could be the venue for Mercedes’s 75th F1 World Championship pole position as a constructor

✪ If Red Bull can score a podium in China it will be the 100th Grand Prix at which at least 1 of their drivers has featured on the race podium

✪ The current Williams team traces its origins back to the setting up of Williams Grand Prix Engineering by Frank Williams and Patrick Head in 1977. This year the team will

be celebrating its 40th anniversary. The team began by running a March for Belgian Patrick Neve and became a constructor in 1978 running a single FW06 car for Alan

Jones. In 1979 the team expanded to 2 cars with Clay Regazzoni joining Jones. Regazzoni won Williams’s first Grand Prix, at Silversone in 1979 while Jones claimed

Williams’s first driver’s and first constructor’s titles in 1980. Frank Williams had made his first forays into F1 in 1969, running a Brabham for Piers Courage. Campaigns with

De Tomaso, private March’s, with his own cars and ex-works Heskeths latterly in conjunction with Canadian-Austrian entrepreneur Walter Wolf followed but it wasn’t until

Williams teamed up with Head and started a new team all over again that Williams’s F1 fortunes really took off

✪ Williams has not led a Grand Prix since leading the British Grand Prix 18 months ago

✪ China could be the 50th race since McLaren led at least a lap of a Grand Prix (Hungary 2014)

 

AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

✪ Mercedes is chasing an unprecedented 4th Chinese Grand Prix win in a row. They already hold the outright record having won consecutively the last 3 races here (2014,

2015 and 2016). Nobody else has won more than 2 in a row (Ferrari 2006 and 2007 and McLaren, 2010 and 2011)

✪ Ferrari and Mercedes share the record for most Chinese Grand Prix wins (4). Clearly a 5th win for either constructor will take the all-time record outright. I should point out

however, that a win for McLaren would equal Ferrari and Mercedes’s record

✪ Mercedes is also chasing a 6th Chinese Grand Prix pole position in a row (5 in a row to date being 2012 through 2016). Nobody else has managed more than 3 in a row in

China (Red Bull 2009 through 2011)

Driver’s Championship standing

Pos.	Driver	Constructor	Points
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	25
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	18
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	15
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	12
5	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing-Tag Heuer	10
6	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	8
7	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	6
8	Carlos Sainz, Jr.	Toro Rosso	4
9	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	2
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1
11	Esteban Ocon	Force India-Mercedes	0
12	Antonio Giovinazzi	Sauber-Ferrari	0
13	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren-Honda	0

 

Constructor’s Championship standing

1	Ferrari	37
2	Mercedes	33
3	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer	10
4	Williams-Mercedes	8
5	Force India-Mercedes	7
6	Toro Rosso	6
7	Renault	0
8	Sauber-Ferrari	0
9	McLaren-Honda	0

 

Driver’s penalty points:

Driver	Penalty points
Daniil Kvyat	8
Sebastian Vettel	6
Carlos Sainz Jr	5
Pascal Wehrlein	4
Kevin Magnussen	4
Esteban Ocon	4
Jolyon Palmer	4
Sergio Perez	3
Valtteri Bottas	2
Kimi Raikkonen	2
Nico Hulkenberg	2
Marcus Erricson	2
Felipe Massa	2
Max Verstappen	1
Romain Grosjean
Lewis Hamilton
Fernando Alonso
Jenson Button