Hamilton wins, Webber springs a Shanghai surprise!

Lewis Hamilton barely looked like he was going to make the race as he faced pre-race jitters before the cars even took the grid of the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday. The McLaren crew were seen working on the MP4-26 as late as 30 seconds before the starting grid was cleared for the warm-up lap. 56 laps later, the McLaren-Mercedes star was toasting his first victory of the F1 2011 campaign after managing his tyres to absolute perfection and producing a sparkling performance in Shanghai. 

The drama around Hamilton's car in the build-up to the grand prix was caused by a fuel leak after the fuel line in his MP4-26 came loose, spilling fuel into the airbox of the engine and necessitating some frantic last-minute work from the McLaren mechanics, who removed the airbox to rectify the issue, sending the Briton out of the pits with barely half-a-minute to go before the grid closed. Hamilton went on to repay his team's stellar efforts in some style – and following some criticism about his ability to look after the tyres in the wake of his Malaysian Grand Prix misery, in China, he demonstrated that lessons had been learned and that he can not only make his tyres work, but that he can make them work better than most of his rivals.

As Sebastian Vettel bogged down slightly off the line, Jenson Button needed no second invitation to pull alongside and seamlessly snatch the lead as the starting lights went out, with the pole-sitter forced to defend against Hamilton in third, but the 2008 F1 World Champion was having none of it and aggressively kept his foot in on the inside into Turn One to make it a McLaren one-two.

Nico Rosberg fancied a piece of the action too as he attempted to follow Hamilton past Vettel, but his compatriot closed the door to at least preserve third place, with Felipe Massa again out-starting Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso to run fifth and the two Force India’s of qualifying star Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil running line-astern in seventh and eighth respectively. Michael Schumacher and Jaime Alguersuari completed the early top ten.

As Button focussed on putting some clear air between himself and Hamilton, the Ferraris were applying the pressure on fourth-placed Rosberg, whilst further back, born racer Kamui Kobayashi perhaps predictably became the first man to make use of the deployment of DRS by making his way past Scuderia Toro Rosso rival Alguersuari for tenth, and swiftly going on to home in on the di Resta, Sutil and Schumacher scrap over seventh place, the Scot reporting 'a lot of problems at the rear' of his Force India.

Rosberg became the first of the front-runners to pit from P4, as the battle right at the front heated up, with Hamilton turning up the wick on his team-mate, as Vettel similarly piled on the pressure behind. With less than a second separating the trio, Button was afforded some welcome breathing space as Hamilton – visibly losing rear grip – found himself having defend for all he was worth against a feisty Vettel, who effortlessly breezed past along the back straight for second place.

Button and Vettel both pitted at the end of lap 15, but there was drama for the British star as he unfathomably pulled into the Red Bull 'box. He swiftly realised his mistake, but by then it was too late, and the erstwhile race leader's critical error cost him track position. There was further misery for McLaren as Hamilton lost out to Massa before making his own pit-stop, meaning both of the Woking-based outfit's drivers ceded a position during the stops – but incredibly, all of the front-runners lost out to Rosberg, whose early stop had vaulted the young German comfortably to the head of the field, to the tune of some five seconds at the end of lap 19.

As a KERS-less Vettel defended his lead from Hamilton for all he was worth, parking his car neatly on the apex of corners in an effort to slow the following McLaren down – but even that was not enough as the irresistible Briton swept by on the run down to Turn Seven and sped away into the distance. The chief focus now, then, turned to Webber, and whether he could steal the final podium spot – and the answer, extraordinarily, was that he could. Lacking KERS like his team-mate, still he didn't let that hold him back as he gutsily toughed it out with Rosberg to move into fourth, and then forced his way past a combative Button at the end of the back straight on the penultimate lap to crown an absolutely outstanding performance.

As Hamilton took the chequered flag for a superb victory and Vettel hung grittily on for second place on fast-deteriorating rubber, Webber was inarguably the star of the race as he completed the podium, a scant 7.5 seconds shy of winning the grand prix and 2.4 seconds behind his team-mate, had there been just a handful more laps, the results would have been different for sure.