After the action packed Bahrain's GP, Formula One, as has been the case for the past decade, once more visits Shanghai for it's Chinese GP.
The circuit is not amongst the fans' favourite tracks but, in all fairness, often provides somewhat good races, with the regulation being the dominant factor of what influences the overall quality of the event.
On it's inaugural race of 2004, a season in which it's races were characterized by boredom and complaints from worldwide viewers due to the lack of fierce battles and overtakings, it has managed to provide an arguably good race, especially for the season's standards. Overall, the GP featured more of the same seen throughout the season but the following video contains rare moments of excitement, for that period:
Wins from pole position : 5, ie, half the time.
Track abrasiveness : Medium. The track is relatively smooth, but the long corners make it demanding on tyres – particularly the front-left
Fuel consumption : Medium. The flowing nature of the racetrack makes fuel less of a strategic factor than in Bahrain, for example
Brakewear: Medium. There are a couple of big stops, particularly into Turn 14, but the brakes have plenty of time to recover
Turbo effect: Low, due to not much acceleration from low speeds
Grid advantage: The left side of the grid holds a slight advantage
Pitlane time: 21s
The 2014 season has established the expected Mercedes works team dominance and the good performance from the cars using the German propeller. Red Bull have demonstrated, once again, to have designed a very good car with the Renault Power Unit being the major aspect holding it back, whereas Ferrari appears to be in for another year of bad results with even it's Technical Director being replaced, this early already.
The status quo is expected to remain the same, at least until the European part of the season begins, and the Shanghai circuit's layout might flatters the Mercedes-powered cars even more
Tyre options: Mediums and Softs
Detailed weather prediction: http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=f1;sess=
Of interesting note, during winter testings, UK's Sky Sports reporter Ted Kravitz said to have heard from Nico Rosberg that he predicted a top speed of 230mph (368 kmh) in China. Whether that was a misunderstanding from Kravitz or not, the top speed ever recorded at this track was from Giancarlo Fisichella with 342.4kmh in the FP2 of the 2005 GP.
Considering that due to around 80% of the lap is spent cornering, and therefore the high level of downforce ran by the teams, together with an approximate 5% increase in top speed seen fromm last year, so far, the thread opener's humble prediction is for a top speed of 335,7kmh(from Sergio Perez)
If you are looking for streams, vipbox always has some and you can also find alternative ones on the signature of "coltyre"
