Hamilton dominates as Mercedes sweep F1 Chinese Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton sailed to a near perfect victory over Mercedes AMG teammate Nico Rosberg in the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix as he closed to within four points of the German in the F1 drivers' standings.

Hamilton started the race from pole to lead the entire race while Rosberg set the fastest lap en route to recovering from a poor start that involved a collision with Williams Racing's Valtteri Bottas following which he had to finish the rest of the race with no car to pits telemetry available for him.

Former two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso battled his way to third ahead of the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo who comprehensively beat team-mate, defending four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel throughout the entire weekend by first outqualifying him for second place on the starting grid and then finishing twenty four seconds ahead of him.

Sahara Force India F1's Nico Hulkenberg, Bottas, 2007 F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari. Force India's Sergio Perez and Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat rounded out the top ten.

The race very quickly became a fight for second place as Hamilton stormed off into the distance nearly a second ahead of Vettel who managed to jump Ricciardo at the start while Alonso had survived a visibly jarring bump by Felipe Massa's Williams.

The 2008 F1 drivers' championship runner-up had made a good start from sixth place and was attempting to make his way up the grid into the first corner as he suddenly cut to his left and touched his front left tyre with former Ferrari team-mate Alonso's front right.

The resulting collision caused the Williams to become slightly airborne but continue apparently unaffected.

Massa's race was ultimately ruined during his first pit stop when the pit crew struggled to replace both his rear tyres. The Brazilian ultimately dropped to the tail of the grid and could only manage 15th.

Rosberg had to make his way up the grid after a difficult start had dropped him to the tail of the top ten in addition to having to deal with the loss of car to pit telemetry.

However, he ultimately made his way past Vettel, Ricciardo and Alonso as the three then resumed to fight it out for the final podium position.

On a similar strategy to Australian Ricciardo, however, defending F1 champion Vettel was unable to keep up with his new teammate, at one point even ignoring the Red Bull Racing pit wall's subtle hint to let the him through.

Ricciardo did the job on his own and proceeded to pull away but was unable to prevent Alonso from taking the podium after the Spaniard put in a superlative performance to finish nearly a minute ahead of his highly touted teammate.

The Force India team once again managed to get both their cars into the points albeit not as spectacularly as in Bahrain where Perez and Hulkenberg took third and fifth.

In what can also be considered as something of an achievement Lotus F1's Pastor Maldonado managed to finish the race without hitting any of his other competitors. Maldonado 'turned some heads' this weekend by stating that racing penalties were 'ruining' F1 in the aftermath of him flipping Esteban Gutierrez's Sauber in Bahrain.

He followed that up by crashing his Lotus on the entry to the pit lane in Friday practice!

With his 25th F1 career win, Lewis Hamilton is now tied with three-time champion Niki Lauda and two-time champion Jim Clark as the eighth winningest driver in the history of sport.

Rosberg still leads the standings in the drivers world championship with 79 points to Hamilton's 75. Alonso is a distant third with 41 points to his name just five points ahead of Hulkenberg who is three points ahead of Vettel.

Mercedes AMG lead the constructors' standings with a staggering 154 points out of a maximum of 172 after the first four races. Red Bull Racing and Force India are second and third with 57 and 54 points, respectively. Ferrari are fourth with 52 points and McLaren trail them by nine points.

TOP TEN DRIVERS' POINTS STANDINGS (after Rd. 4/19)

1) Nico Rosberg (GER)         75

2) Lewis Hamilton (GBR)     79

3) Fernando Alonso (ESP)   41

4) Nico Hulkenberg (GER)   36

5) Sebastian Vettel (GER)    33

6) Daniel Ricciardo (AUS)    24

7) Valtteri Bottas (FIN)       24

8) Jenson Button (GBR)       23

9) Kevin Magnussen (DEN)  20

10) Sergio Perez (MEX)         18

TOP TEN CONSTRUCTORS' POINTS STANDINGS

1) Mercedes                            154

2) Red Bull-Renault                 57

3) Force India-Mercedes        54

4) Ferrari                                   52

5) McLaren-Mercedes             43

6) Williams-Mercedes              36

7) Toro Rosso-Renault               8

8) Lotus-Renault                         0

9) Sauber-Ferrari                       0

10) Marussia Ferrari                  0

*Note: The chequered flag was waved one lap early so officially the race was for 54 laps despite Hamilton and other drivers on the lead lap completing 56 laps. The revision doesn't change the points scoring positions but Kamui Kobayashi will be classified 18th while Jules Bianchi is classified 17th.

F1 CHINESE GRAND PRIX RACE CLASSIFICATION