Ladies and gentlemen, we have a proper battle on our hands. After Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel's flawless race in Australia two weeks ago, Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton roared back - Hamilton extending his proud record in China, with a fifth win in 11 attempts.
Vettel wasn't too far behind, around six seconds at the end, showing that his and Ferrari's race pace was no fluke, but there was simply no matching Hamilton, who claimed a grand slam of pole position, the fastest lap and 25 points for the third time in his career.
The fighting Red Bulls showed an upturn in form, but Daniel Ricciardo accredited that to the changeable conditions. The Australian had a great battle at the end with Max Verstappen, who produced a stunning display to get on the podium from 16th on the grid, matching Mark Webber's feat here in 2011, although the Aussie started from 18th that day.
Let's hear from all 20 drivers after the second round of the year.
Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton - 1st
"I've got a great record around here. I'm incredibly fortunate to be working with intelligent and hard-working people, who elevate me to the top step. It's a track that's really boded well for my driving style in both the wet and dry. Really happy with how I performed today, the strategists did an amazing job with decision in regards to the timing of coming in. It was really just an on-point weekend."
Valtteri Bottas - 6th
"I think for everyone, it was quite a tricky start with the call of when to change to the dry tyres. We had a bit of an issue with the pit stop, I lost a couple of places, but that was no big drama in these conditions. There was still a long race ahead of us. Under the Safety Car, I was trying to generate as much temperature as I could and I was too aggressive and made a mistake and then spun. From the stupid mistake, we lost a lot of points today."
Ferrari
Sebastian Vettel - 2nd
"The restart was tricky because my tyres were two laps cooler than other people's tyres and then I got stuck, but that's what the race was then and I think it was a good recovery. I was asked if I could go faster and I said yes, but I knew that Kimi could go faster too and I said that he could. I don;t know what happened later on, if Kimi had some trouble but I think it was a good recovery."
Kimi Raikkonen - 5th
"The car was good when the tyres were fresh, but we seemed to lose the front tyres and at a place like this, I was giving away a lot of lap time. Even with that, I think we should have got a better result, but this is what we got today. I think we should have changed [tyres in the second stint] earlier, but it's always easier to say that after the race. Not a very strong race, but this is how it goes."
Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo - 4th
"I would have loved to have made it more of a battle. I tried to get close, but then you suffer a bit with the tyres and even with DRS, we never really got into a massively good position to overtake. I thought about the inside, but it was still quite wet and it would have been from a long way back. Frustrating not to be on the podium again, but I'll move on."
Max Verstappen - 3rd
"That wasn't bad! I really enjoyed the first lap where I passed nine cars, and from there onwards, I made some good moves and then I was a struggling a little bit with the balance of the car, I didn't run a lot in Qualifying, of course, so I didn't really have a good picture of it. I don't think it was perfect, I got a lot of understeer so I was happy to keep third."
Toro Rosso
Daniil Kvyat - DNF
"We had a hydraulic failure which still needs to be investigated and therefore had to stop the car. Just before that, we were struggling a bit on the soft tyre and it was a bit hard to keep them up to temperature...so we were an easy target for everyone who was on super-softs. It wasn’t being the easiest of races, that’s for sure! In general I’m quite happy, it’s just a shame we had a bit of bad luck today."
Carlos Sainz - 7th
You must have seen the faces of my engineers when I told them I was going to start on the super-soft! They looked at me like I was a bit crazy. When I saw everyone was on the intermediates, I thought it was too risky. I knew everyone was going to pass me, then the track dried at Turn 6 and I caught the pack. Then, everyone pitted and I thought: Now I'm the clever one!"
Force India
Sergio Perez - 9th
"The start of the race was not easy because I made a very poor start and lost five or six places before Turn 1. I recovered some places during lap one, but then there was contact with Stroll in Turn 4, which gave me a puncture. We definitely made the switch to dry tyres at the right moment; it’s another great result for the whole team and our twelfth consecutive race in the points, which is a special achievement."
Esteban Ocon - 10th
"Today, starting where we started - P17, to come back P10 is a good accomplishment. The only thing is, we could have done better, we had a free pit stop, I came in for nothing - because we didn't change tyres. There was a miscommunication, so I could've been higher up. But, that's how it is."
Williams
Lance Stroll - DNF
"I was hit from the rear at Turn 10 and that was the end of my race. I was in front, knew the corner was mine and had to turn in eventually. It was just unfortunate as that was my race over. While today was difficult, we have some positives to take out of this weekend."
Felipe Massa - 14th
"Everything went wrong for us. I had too much wheelspin at the start, and then behind the safety car we had five slow laps on the dry tyres, so they were completely cold. I wasn’t able to drive in the proper way because it felt like I was driving on ice. Then, we tried to risk stopping before the others to see if we could pass people and keep up the pace, but I couldn’t."
Haas
Romain Grosjean - 11th
"Yesterday was a bit of a joke and today the same guy [Giovinazzi] crashed in front of me on the straight line, so I had to stop. I lost a lot of time. From there I just pushed as hard as I could. I couldn’t really find an opening on [Jolyon] Palmer. Once I did, though, I had some good lap times. We were doing a decent job, but it was already too late."
Kevin Magnussen - 8th
"I had some fun out there with the Force Indias and I had a really good car through the race. I had a poor start and to come back from that, I'm really happy. We've been able to look after the front tyres, which I think was key today. Happy for the team and we're looking forward to the coming races."
Renault
Nico Hulkenberg - 12th
"We took a risk right at the end of the first lap and came in for slicks as the track was really dry everywhere apart from the main straight. As I exited the box though, Stroll crashed and the Virtual Safety Car came out, and in damp conditions if you can’t push, you lose all the tyre temperature. From there it just went wrong, the VSC pretty much ruined our strategy and so the race."
Jolyon Palmer - 13th
“It was a difficult race. We made the right call to pit at the end of the formation lap but I hit a wet patch when racing a Toro Rosso, then the tyres lost temperature under the Virtual Safety Car, so it was a very difficult first stint. On the plus side, the car ran reliably and I have a race distance under my belt now."
Sauber
Marcus Ericsson - 15th
"I had a good start as well as a decent first lap. After that, it was quite difficult. The conditions were tricky as well as the asphalt temperatures being relatively low, which made it difficult to get the tyres to work. Overall, I struggled with the tyres during the whole race – I never really got them into the right working window."
Antonio Giovinazzi - DNF
“First of all, I want to apologise again to the team. They did a great job to get the car ready for the race. It was a shame that I crashed again today. A learning lesson – I just want to forget this weekend quickly.”
McLaren
Stoffel Vandoorne - DNF
"On lap 17 we lost power – I don’t really know exactly the reason – but I think it was a fuel problem. It’s a shame we couldn’t get to the finish today – the potential was there and the car felt quite competitive in the corners compared to the cars I was racing against. There are still positives we can take away: the chassis is coming along, and both Fernando and I are feeling very confident to push."
Fernando Alonso - DNF
"We started P13 in very tricky conditions and we were running P6 after three laps. I was hoping for the conditions to stay as they were because people were spinning off here and there. We maximised our opportunities and when the track was drying up, we started to lose a bit of ground, but we remained P7, which obviously, was completely out of position!"
