Top ten pictures from the 2015 Chinese Grand Prix

Ten of the best pictures which tell the story of the Chinese Grand Prix weekend.

Lewis Hamilton

Chinese F1 fans have a reputation for treating drivers like rock stars and it was no different this year. Lewis Hamilton, unsurprisingly, was one of the more popular drivers with the Shanghai fans.

Kimi Raikkonen

After Sebastian Vettel’s victory and Raikkonen’s impressive recovery drive to fourth in Malaysia, the 2007 world champion arrived in China looking for his first podium since the 2013 Korean Grand Prix.

Jolyon Palmer

After winning the GP2 championship last year, Jolyon Palmer made his first appearance at a grand prix weekend replacing Romain Grosjean in First Practice, covering 25 laps and ending the session P15.

Start

China’s unique first turn always provides some drama at the start. Hamilton led Rosberg as the lights went out but there was an intense battle for fourth place between the two Williams and Raikkonen’s Ferrari.

Red Bull

A weekend to forget for Red Bull as the team struggled for pace in the race and suffered from yet another engine-related retirement in the early stages with Daniil Kvyat. Here, the Russian holds up his faster team mate Ricciardo.

Max Verstappen

It was another impressive performance by F1’s youngest ever driver in China. Verstappen pull off some superb late moves on the two Saubers and Sergio Perez and was running eighth until a drive train problem ruined his afternoon.

Romain Grosjean

It was a good weekend for Grosjean and Lotus, who demonstrated their pace by running in the top ten consistently all weekend and scoring the team’s first points finish of the season.

Lewis Hamilton

Having led from pole, Hamilton controlled the race from the front and never seemed under pressure from his team mate. For the fourth time in his career, Hamilton took the chequered flag first in Shanghai.

Sebastian Vettel

After winning in Malaysia, there was little Vettel could do to make it back-to-back victories in China. Vettel is only the second Ferrari driver to have finished on the podium in his first three races for the team.

Mercedes

Yet again it was a Mercedes one-two finish, but Nico Rosberg was not quite in as good a mood as his team mate post race. Rosberg accused Hamilton of deliberately compromising his race, leading to tensions building between the two once more.