Race - Chinese GP report: Renault F1

— Three Renault-powered cars finish in the top ten with Infiniti Red Bull Racing fourth and fifth and Scuderia Toro Rosso tenth
— Infiniti Red Bull Racing move into second position in constructors’ championship
— Lotus F1 Team demonstrate points-scoring potential
— Double finish for Caterham F1 Team

Infiniti Red Bull Racing

Daniel Ricciardo finished the race in fourth position, right on the tail of Fernando Alonso. After dropping two places at the start he stayed out on a long first stint but was passed by Nico Rosberg when he exited. He ultimately clawed his way back and overtook team-mate Sebastian Vettel at half distance before hunting down Alonso for third. The Australian was just four seconds adrift at the flag fall. Vettel moved to second at the start but a pit stop one lap before Alonso dropped him behind the Spaniard. He lost a position to Rosberg after the second stop and then finally to Ricciardo to finish fifth. The double finish puts the team into second in the constructors’ championship.

Scuderia Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat scored his third points of the season with tenth position. The Russian made a strong start and battled with the McLaren of Jenson Button for the majority of the race. With a good strategy he ultimately moved ahead to take home one point. Jean-Eric Vergne had a tougher race. After dropping back at the start he got caught in traffic and was not able to capitalize on the pace of the car. He finished in 12th overall.

Lotus F1 Team

Romain Grosjean achieved the team’s best qualifying position of the season so far, starting in tenth. The Frenchman held position through the first round of pit stops and looked set to score his first points of the year until his car developed a gearbox issue on lap 28. The problem proved to be terminal and he retired from the race. Pastor Maldonado started from last on the grid following problems in qualifying but graduated through the field to finish 14th ahead of Felipe Massa.

Caterham F1 Team

Caterham F1 Team achieved a double car finish with Kamui Kobayashi bringing the car home in 18th after a race-long fight with the Marussia of Jules Bianchi. Team-mate Marcus Ericsson passed the flag in 20th, his second race finish in his debut season.

Rémi Taffin, Head of Track Operations:

Three cars in the top ten, with the potential for four, at a power sensitive track such as China is a good result for this weekend. While we have some way to go, we have made good progress across all our partners on energy management with the balance between ICE fuel usage and energy recovery allows the teams to extract close to the maximum performance from their packages. We acknowledge we still have some further steps and need to consolidate the reliability we have developed, but we have three weeks before the Spanish Grand Prix and another intensive programme to build on this weekend. The trend is now there and we fully intend to stay on this curve.