FLN Report: 2016 Chinese GP
The following opinions in this write up are completely serious. Totally genuine and the basis of my world view. If you don’t agree with them you’re a sell out and in the pocket of the new world order. 200% serious.
There is nothing we here at FLN love more than a bonafide first lap nutcase, Daniil Kvyat went beyond being crazy in the eyes of Vettel who called the man “suicidial” as he grovelled and pleaded for forgiveness from Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne on the team radio. He blamed Kvyat for the fact that he took out his teammate and ruined Ferrari’s chances to beat Mercedes in a race where defending WDC Hamilton was in the back of the grid playing chess not checkers with Marussia and Renault. The beginning of the 2016 Chinese GP has to be one of the most exciting in recent times, and it was the young Russian torpedoing the gap into corner 1 that allowed that to happen, so we have nothing but admiration for him. The Ferrari’s crashed, Lewis lost his wing while employing the english opening on the Renault boys, Williams were overtaking cars for the first time this season, and Ricciardo’s tired exploded as the Force Indians found themselves in P3 and P4 until the FIA decided that having a full car’s worth of carbon fiber littered around the track was enough to warrant a safety car.
As the track marshals cleaned the track Lewis Hamilton pitted for a record 17 times in a brilliant execution of the dutch defence, as Vettel passed two cars on his way to the pit lane in a sneaky move. In truth Vettel’s move wouldn’t have been possible without Hulkenberg slowing down to 2015 McLaren pace, which wasn’t even warranted as Sergio Perez who was pitting ahead of him ended finished his pit stop so quickly he almost took out three cars on the way out so in the end one sneaky move was bested by another. Race restarts after extended safety car periods are always great as they allow the drivers to really push, forget about fuel and just go for it and that’s exactly what we say. Vettel plowed through the field like a World Champion, Fernando Alonso was also showing that the McLaren had some life in it as it was in P4 at one point and even as he was overtaken he was able to pull some sweet sneaky moves to not go down without a fight. Ultimately though the McLaren ended the race in P12 and P13, the days of 2015 McLaren is over! We’re back to 2013 McLaren.
Elsewhere on the grid, Force India managed to somehow jack up another race and finish well out of the points. Renault finished dead last, and really makes you wonder how exactly can a watchmaker make their engine work much better than they can? Haas regressed to what we all expected them to be before the season but atleast Esteban Gutierrez finished the race? Hamilton employed the stonewall attack and ended P7 which all things considered is pretty great. Nico Rosberg showed up on TV for about 30 seconds and 20 of those were him going off the road for some reason. Williams were not overtaken 100 times in this race and instead did some overtaking of their one and Sauber vanished more and more into obscurity….I didn’t even see them get lapped and the race ended with a Mercedes engineer celebrating by yelling out like scooby doo.
FLN Power Rankings
- First Lap Nutcases
- 7 pit stops
- Saying “Well” instead of “For Sure”
- Chess not Checkers
- Golden State Warriors
- Winning Six Races in a row and still being an underdog
- The Huge Finnish community in China
- Not waving Blue flags
- 2016 Honda engine
- Alonso’s ribs
