2007 Chinese Grand Prix

The 2007 Chinese Grand Prix is the sixteenth race of the 2007 Formula One season. It was held on 5–7 October at Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai, China. The race was won by Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen with Fernando Alonso finishing second and Felipe Massa finishing third. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton retired from the race after going off at a very wet pit entrance on worn tyres left him stuck in the gravel.

Pre-race

Going into the race, Lewis Hamilton of McLaren led the Drivers' Championship by 12 points from his team-mate Fernando Alonso, after Alonso crashed in Fuji Speedway. Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen was the other driver who mathematically had a chance of winning the championship, trailing Hamilton by 17 points. To clinch the championship, Hamilton needed to finish within one point of his team-mate Alonso and within 6 points of Räikkönen. Whatever the result, Hamilton would still be leading the championship after the race.

The weather conditions at the track were affected by Typhoon Krosa which hit the east coast of China.

Classification

Qualifying

Sebastian Vettel was facing a drop of ten places on the grid for his collision against Mark Webber in the preceding race (the Japanese Grand Prix), but this punishment was reduced to a reprimand. However, he was then dropped five places on the grid for impeding Heikki Kovalainen during qualifying.

Despite the fact that Kimi Räikkönen had been the fastest driver in all three previous practices and in the first two stages of the qualifying session, Lewis Hamilton managed to beat this time on the third qualifying stage and therefore earning the pole position.

Pos	Name	Team/Engine	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:35.798	1:35.898	1:35.908
2	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:35.692	1:35.381	1:36.044
3	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:35.792	1:35.796	1:36.221
4	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	1:35.809	1:35.845	1:36.576
5	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	1:36.930	1:36.252	1:37.619
6	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:37.135	1:36.709	1:38.013
7	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:37.199	1:36.602	1:38.153
8	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:36.737	1:36.217	1:38.455
9	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:36.309	1:36.116	1:38.472
10	Jenson Button	Honda	1:37.092	1:36.771	1:39.285
11	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:37.047	1:36.862
12	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:37.209	1:36.959
13	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	1:37.225	1:36.991
14	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	1:37.203	1:37.247
15	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:37.144	1:37.483
16	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:37.251
17†	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:37.006	1:36.891
18	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:37.290
19	Alexander Wurz	Williams-Toyota	1:37.456
20	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	1:38.218
21	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	1:38.668
22	Sakon Yamamoto	Spyker-Ferrari	1:39.336

† Relegated 5 places for impeding another driver

Race

From the Sunday morning, conditions at Shanghai were wet, forcing all drivers to use "shallow wet" tyres. At the start Lewis Hamilton managed to keep his leading position. Vitantonio Liuzzi was the most successful starter, winning three positions at the first lap and overtaking Mark Webber and then Nick Heidfeld in the following three laps. Ralf Schumacher, after he has rolled into spin at the first corner, was dropped down to the last position. Toyota driver regained most of his lost positions, until lap 22 he overtook eight drivers. But the change of tyres to pseudo-slick cost the German the race: he twice spun off the course and retired at lap 26.

As the track dried Hamilton began to suffer from tyre wear. With his pit stop imminent Mclaren elected to keep Lewis out until he had moved into the pit stop window. This was to work to his disadvantage though as he lost a significant amount of time on track because his tires had worn down to the cords. He then found himself without enough grip to negotiate the still-wet sharp left turn entering the pit lane. After running wide into a gravel trap he beached the car and was forced to retire.

After Räikkönen's pit stop, Robert Kubica became temporary leader, but retired while leading because of gearbox hydraulics failure. In the struggle for 3rd position, which soon became 2nd, Alonso passed by Massa. The Spaniard initially left his opponent behind with a large gap, but on the last laps Massa managed to beat his partner's fastest lap and decreased his gap to Alonso to 3 sec.

The race was won by Räikkönen, with Alonso as runner-up and Massa third. Sebastian Vettel, who had started 17th and chosen a one-stop tactic, finished fourth, the best result of his career at the time.

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	56	1:37:58.395	2	10
2	1	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	56	+9.806	4	8
3	5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	56	+12.891	3	6
4	19	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	56	+53.509	17	5
5	7	Jenson Button	Honda	56	+1:08.666	10	4
6	18	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	56	+1:13.673	11	3
7	9	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	56	+1:14.224	8	2
8	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	56	+1:20.750	5	1
9	4	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	56	+1:21.186	13
10	15	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	56	+1:24.685	7
11	3	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	56	+1:26.683	18
12	17	Alexander Wurz	Williams-Toyota	55	+1 Lap	19
13	12	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	55	+1 Lap	12
14	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	55	+1 Lap	20
15	8	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	55	+1 Lap	16
16	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	54	+2 Laps	15
17	21	Sakon Yamamoto	Spyker-Ferrari	53	+3 Laps	22
Ret	10	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	33	Hydraulics	9
Ret	2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	30	Spun off	1
Ret	11	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	25	Spun off	6
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	24	Accident	21
Ret	23	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	11	Brakes	14

Notes

• Lap Leaders: Lewis Hamilton 24 (1–15 & 20–28), Kimi Räikkönen 31 (16–19,29–32 & 34–56) and Robert Kubica 1 (33).
• Last race: Alexander Wurz
• Ferrari achieved its 200th Formula One win, and its 600th Formula One podium.
• First points of the season for Toro Rosso.
• Hamilton retired for the first time in his career.
• This race was the final Grand Prix for Alexander Wurz, who announced his immediate retirement the day after the race.

References

External links

• Detailed Chinese Grand Prix results