Lewis Hamilton wins Chinese Grand Prix as Mercedes dominate again

Lewis Hamilton strolled to his third victory in a row in China to trail team-mate Nico Rosberg by just four points in the drivers' championship.

And were it not for mechanical failure in Melbourne, the man from Stevenage could well be looking at a maximum 100-point return from the first four races.

Once again, the Briton started from pole and comfortably fended off the challenge of the Red Bulls and fast-starting Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard and Felipe Massa bolted from the third row and nearly made contact, with Rosberg bogged down by the other Williams of Valtteri Bottas.

As the battling commenced, Hamilton streaked away, pulling ten seconds clear of Sebastian Vettel in ten laps to give the German a taste of his own usually prescribed medicine.

Massa, however, was left with it all to do after his team mechanics struggled to change his left-rear wheel in the pits, with the Brazilian re-joining the action in 21st.

Having just as miserable a time were McLaren, with Jenson Button losing out in a battle for 14th place with Sergio Perez – not somewhere the Mexican would have predicted to be following his podium in Bahrain.

Vettel lost out to Alonso in the first round of stops and it slowly got worse for the four-time world champion as Rosberg continued his recovery, blasting past his compatriot into third.

And when it rains, it seemingly pours, as Vettel was then asked to let his new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo through. He stubbornly refused, but his Aussie stable-mate blitzed past regardless to outline his somewhat surprising superiority in the world champion team.

With 17 laps to go, Rosberg, getting no help from telemetry or communication, completed his second stop and started to reel in Alonso. The man from Oviedo was setting personal bests but could do nothing about the sheer speed of the Silver Arrow, and a few minutes later Rosberg was through.

Alonso now had Ricciardo to worry about, but the same could not be said of Vettel for the Australian – with six laps to go Ricciardo was enjoying a 16-second lead over the sister Red Bull.

Hamilton knew the feeling – he was cruising to his 25th career victory and took the chequered flag 18.6 seconds ahead of Rosberg – it could easily have been much more.

Alonso did enough to fend off Ricciardo’s charge for third, with Vettel a staggering 25 seconds further back. Nico Hulkenberg solidified his excellent championship standing of fourth by taking sixth ahead of Bottas, with Kimi Raikkonen, Perez and the once-again impressive Daniil Kvyat rounding off the points.

The result leaves Mercedes a staggering 97 points ahead of nearest challengers Red Bull after just four races.