Autosport – 18 April 2019

TOP 10 AVERAGE RATINGS

Perez drove superbly to eighth,

making his one-stop strategy count

18 APRIL 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 29

CHINESE GP RACE CENTRE

SERGIO PEREZ

GEORGE RUSSELL

LANCE STROLL KIMI RAIKKONEN ALEXANDER ALBON

ROBERT KUBICA

ANTONIO GIOVINAZZI DANIIL KVYAT

RACING POINT

WILLIAMS

ALFA ROMEO TORO ROSSO

Stroll fell in Q1

for the third

consecutive race

after a scrappy

lap, with the 0.266s

gap to Perez putting

him into the dropzone.

His race was good,

but getting undercut

by Albon at the first

stops cost him a shot

at a potential point,

although he also

finished behind the

Haas of Grosjean.

Kubica’s Williams

didn’t seem to

know if it was

coming or going

in China and the effort

he had to put in

behind the wheel –

all throttle stabs and

steering inputs at

times – suggested the

car wasn’t behaving.

That he qualified just

0.028s behind Russell

reflected well, but the

race was a struggle.

Giovinazzi is an

early contender

for ‘unluckiest

driver of the

season’. He lost FP1 to

an engine installation

problem and then

qualifying to a control

electronics failure, and

started from 19th. He

ended up on a curious

strategy with an ultra-

early first stop that

didn’t allow him to

match Albon.

Kvyat showed

serious pace but

didn’t make Q3

after a mistake

on his second Q2 lap.

That put him in harm’s

way at the start, and

his race was ruined

when he hit Sainz,

then Norris, after a

rear-end wobble in

Turn 6 and earned a

drivethrough. He was

16th when he retired

to save mileage.

Perez

thought

coping with

difficult wind

conditions helped him

grab 12th on the grid.

A superb run early on

got him up to eighth,

which he held after

a well-executed

one- stop strategy.

Resisted pressure from

Raikkonen, and

probably couldn’t

have beaten Ricciardo.

It says a lot of

Russell’s attitude

that he called his

qualifying lap

“rubbish”, despite

being the best of the

Williams drivers, after

struggling to get the

car to respond when

on maximum attack.

He did what he could

in the race, scrapping

with faster cars before

settling into his run to

a distant 16th.

Raikkonen failed

to reach Q3,

although the

power loss he

reported over the

radio in Q2 proved to

be a strong headwind.

But he made good

progress in the race,

making key passes to

climb to ninth. Losing

tyre temperature

late on meant he

couldn’t attack

Perez to the end.

Albon caught

the eye with a

superfast long

run on Friday,

but his weekend

seemed ruined when

he shunted heavily at

the final corner in FP3.

That forced him to

start from the pitlane,

but he executed a

one-stop strategy well,

made some key passes

and held off Grosjean

for the final point.

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