Nico Rosberg dominates while Lewis Hamilton does his best to battle back on in a dramatic race at the 2016 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.

• Nico took his 17th career victory today – his second at the Shanghai International Circuit, four years after sealing his first Formula One win at the same venue
• Lewis produced a battling drive to finish P7 from the back of the grid – despite incurring significant damage to his car in a first lap incident
• Today’s result marks the 100th podium finish for the Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows in Formula One
• Nico (75) leads the Drivers’ Championship by 36 points from Lewis (39) in P2
• MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS (114) lead Ferrari (61) by 53 points in the Constructors’ Championship

Nico Rosberg

Nico Rosberg

It’s been a fantastic few days for me here in China. First of all, the fans have been amazing from the moment I arrived. They’re so enthusiastic, which gives us drivers a very special feeling. Then, racing wise, it was an almost perfect weekend. Only the start could have been better – but luckily I was able to pass Daniel later on the straight and from then on I could build up a gap. I must say, I’ve never had a better balance in my car than I had today. It was really perfect, so a big thanks to everyone who helped me achieve that. I also want to thank all the women in my life – my wife, my daughter and my mother. Their support is unbelievable and that’s really what makes it possible for me to be doing what I’m doing. I’m a very happy man today and, after three races I can be really pleased about how my season has gone so far. But it’s a very long year ahead and there’s a lot of points still on the table, so I’m not losing my focus. Now I look forward to Russia, where I started my good run of qualifying results last year. Hopefully I can get on a nice run like that again.

Lewis Hamilton

That was definitely a difficult weekend. I got a good start – but it’s always tricky being at the back and trying not to get caught up in the domino effect of any contact at the first corner. I tried to avoid whatever happened in front of me but I just got tangled up in it. It was just a bit unfortunate, really. From there it was always going to be a battle – but I had a lot of fun fighting back through! There were plenty of overtakes, from what I can remember! I gave it everything I had and P7 was about the limit. There was nothing left in the tyres at the end and, although it’s pretty good for overtaking here, I had quite a lot of damage to the car which made it difficult to get close on the brakes. From what I could feel there was definitely some aero loss and possible suspension damage too, as the car seemed to be flexing all over the place. But that’s racing – it happens sometimes and at least I still managed to get a few points on the board. It’s a pretty big hit points-wise today – but I’ll just have to do what I can to make it up over the next few races. Onwards and upwards…

Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport

That was a rollercoaster race today. Nico enjoyed the perfect weekend: he was totally dominant this afternoon, always in control of his performance and did really a flawless job. For Lewis, the circumstances couldn’t have been more different. He got a great start, tried to stay out of trouble in the first corners and still got collected by a Sauber, who was avoiding another car coming back on track. His front wing was lodged under the car for a while, which damaged the leading edge of the floor and cost him a chunk of downforce for the rest of the race – though it was hard to know exactly how much during the race. We did something different with him under the Safety Car, cycling through the SuperSoft tyre with no loss of position, in order to open up some strategic options later in the race. He put in a great recovery drive and pulled off some great overtakes – but the damage to the car meant the tyres didn’t last as long as we had hoped and made it hard to catch cars through Turn 13 before the back straight. He still did a great job and kept charging to the end – but it was damage limitation again for him this afternoon. We are just three races into the longest season in Formula One history, so this isn’t the time to be looking at Championship tables or points gaps. We just need to keep scoring points right now, continue to work on our reliability after some wobbles this weekend and keep working very hard to bring more performance to the car and Power Unit. Today looked like it could have been a three-way fight with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull if our rivals had a cleaner race – so there is no margin for us to relax.

Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical)

Starting on Lewis’ side, one of the debates we actually had overnight was whether to do a bit more work to the car and start him from the pit lane, which ironically would have been a better decision in hindsight given what happened at the first corner. Equally, Lewis had by far his best start of the season, which ironically contributed to him being caught up in the cascade of collisions ahead of him. So, a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances all round put him on the back foot straight away. We could see that there were problems with the car – both aerodynamic and mechanical – affecting him through the low-speed corners in particular. Under the safety car, we chose to perform consecutive pit stops with Lewis to get rid of the SuperSoft and enable us to run the rest of the race on the Soft, which was the stronger race tyre. As it transpired, his first set of softs were cut from the first corner incident – something we were unaware of at the time – which meant we were then forced to run the medium at the end of the race, rendering our SuperSoft eliminating tactic redundant. So, overall, Lewis did a great job to recover what he could with a car that was significantly underperforming. On Nico’s side, he actually had a less good start, losing a place into the first corner – although he was obviously running a less grippy tyre compound than the cars around him. He was, however, able to re-pass Daniel quite quickly once DRS became available and went on to have a straightforward race from there – running a soft / soft / medium strategy as intended from the beginning. An uneventful race from his perspective – but that’s not to underestimate the top job he did to manage the car safely within its limits and claim a well-deserved third victory of the season – and the 100th Formula One podium for the Silver Arrows in the process. We now look forward to Russia – targeting a clean and successful weekend on both sides of the garage.

Chinese Grand Prix, as Lewis Hamilton leads home Nico Rosberg at the Shanghai International Circuit.

• Lewis took his second consecutive Chinese Grand Prix victory – his fourth in Shanghai and the 35th of his Formula One Career
• The result also marked his second Grand Chelem; pole, victory, fastest lap and leading from lights to flag
• Nico claimed his fourth Chinese Grand Prix podium, the 29th of his career, in second place
• Today’s result marks the 31st Silver Arrows Formula One victory and 18th one-two finish from 111 Grand Prix Starts
• Both drivers ran a two stop strategy of option / option / prime, stopping on laps 15 / 31 (Nico) and 14 / 33 (Lewis)

Lewis Hamilton

I’m really happy. It was a great race and really positive to have a clean weekend throughout every session. The team did a great job. Going into today we expected it to be close with Ferrari as they had been good on the tyres on their long runs. The goal was to run my own race and manage the tyres as best I could; I was driving as hard as I could within the constraints of the tyres and just trying to stretch out the Option stints for as long as possible. I never really had a threat from Nico but I didn’t do anything intentionally to slow him up. Before the second stops I was able to put in a few fast laps to build the gap which I really enjoyed. Then, it was a case of managing the life of the Prime tyre to the finish. Overall, I’ve just got to say thank you to the team for a smooth weekend. We dialled the car in where I wanted and that helped me deliver out there today. It’s a great feeling to win again in China in front of all these amazing fans. Their support has been incredible all weekend, so ‘xiexie’ to all of them!

Nico Rosberg

It was great to beat the Ferrari and the team has done a great job since Malaysia. But I’m also a bit frustrated today, as I saw how much of a difference four hundredths of a second to Lewis in Qualifying can make. Lewis managed his tyres a lot in the middle stint and that put me at risk with Vettel right behind. But the team adapted to box me earlier for the second stop and stay ahead of the Ferrari after he had pitted to try and jump ahead through the undercut on new tyres. So that worked out – but I then had a long final stint to do and the tyres were beginning to give up in the final laps. I’m sure we will sit down and discuss it all now. But in general it’s up to me to change the situation. I just need to make a better job on Saturday.

Toto Wolff

That was a great victory for the team but not an easy one; it was as challenging a race as we anticipated this morning. At the start of the race, we had the pace to pull a little gap to the Ferraris, but they were really strong today. We had to keep the Option tyres alive long enough and asked the guys to drive in an intelligent way. We chose to stick with the Option for the second stint and had to once again look after them to make them last far enough. We had some good communication during that part of the race, telling each driver what they needed to do to keep the one-two finish safe, and then we switched the pit-stop order for the final stops to protect Nico against Vettel by stopping him before Lewis. But it’s clear from today’s race what a big jump Ferrari has made over the winter. They were competitive in Malaysia, very strong here in the opening stint and they will be quick in Bahrain, too. Tonight, though, we can take a moment to appreciate a job well done – then get our heads down and start working for Bahrain next weekend.

Paddy Lowe

A fantastic result for the team to get another one-two finish. Malaysia was not only a good reminder of how difficult it is to win a Grand Prix, but also how much we don’t like not winning! This weekend we went out there to improve on our performance and everybody did a great job to achieve that. Ferrari pushed us very hard indeed – especially in the first stint. We were pleasantly surprised to see that Sebastian (Vettel) was the first to fall away and pit on the first set of option tyres. We were then able to shadow his strategy and bring home the one-two. It certainly wasn’t comfortable and the pressure was very much on both the drivers and the crew to nail the necessary laps and pit stops respectively. It was a great group performance and a well-earned team result.

After a week of unrest among Daimler shareholders regarding the future of Mercedes in F1, Nico Rosberg took a commanding victory at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai Sunday. Starting from pole position, he took the checkered flag with a 20s margin over the second placed car, achieving his first win in Formula One.

• Nico ran a two-stop option/prime/prime strategy to win by 20.626 seconds over Jenson Button’s McLaren-Mercedes

• Michael was forced to retire on lap 13 after his right front wheel was not properly attached at his first pit stop

• This was Nico’s 111th Formula One start, and comes 111 years after Mercedes’ first win at the 1901 Nice Speed Weeks

• It’s the first win for a works Silver Arrow since the 1955 Italian Grand Prix, on 11 September in Monza – 25,671 days ago!

• The victory is the tenth in Formula One for a works Silver Arrow, and brings the total number of Mercedes-Benz F1 victories to 90

• Mercedes-Benz powered cars filled the podium for the second time in three years at the Chinese Grand Prix

The Mercedes AMG Petronas team completed a total of 89 laps, equivalent to one and a half Grand Prix distances at this circuit. The technical program focused on set-up changes, with intermediate tires required for the early part of P1. In P2, the Mercedes team worked on comparisons between the two dry tire compounds on a variety of fuel loads. At least one of the team’s drivers has finished in the top three of every Friday practice session so far in 2012.

Michael Schumacher

“It was a trouble-free day, and I am quite happy with how our car is handling so far here. The balance of the car was reasonably good, and obviously a balanced car contributes a lot to lap time. As a team, we are a lot stronger in certain areas this season, and we have a much better base to work from, although we are not quite where we want to be with this car yet but I am confident we will get there. We will now have to look deeper into the data in order to find out where we really are here, but I am looking forward to tomorrow’s qualifying.”

Nico Rosberg

“It’s important for us at the moment that we try a lot of different evaluations during practice to improve our race pace. So I think it was a decent start to the race weekend today as we learned quite a few interesting things. The conditions were so changeable today that it was difficult to take the right decisions in terms of set-up work, and we struggled a little with the front tyres. That may have been caused by the cold temperatures today, and can change very quickly between now and the race, so I am not too concerned.”

Ross Brawn

“We had a useful second session on the dry track this afternoon and were able to carry over some of the work that we wanted to do this morning to ensure that we completed our planned programme. Whilst our low fuel runs look good, our primary focus has been on race pace and working to understand the tyres so that we can use them as well as possible on Sunday.”

Norbert Haug

“We are not reading too much into today’s lap times but we are quite positive about what we have learned in terms of race simulations and the comparison between the tyre types on both our cars. In the limited time available after the wet first session, our team and drivers did a good job finding a solid basis to work from tomorrow.”