witnessed Rosberg’s first win in 111 starts, Sergio Perez taking the first podium finish by a Mexican in 41 years and Romain Grosjean putting France back in the top three for the first time since Jean Alesi in 1998. The one constant, apart from
Red Bull’s Mark Webber racking up four fourth places in a row, has been the influence of the Pirelli tyres on proceedings. Mercedes managed to find
the ‘sweet spot’ in Shanghai, and McLaren were completely unable to put their finger on it in Bahrain where they punished the rear tyres and Red Bull and Lotus suddenly looked very quick. “Clearly we did something
wrong,” said Whitmarsh, whose team are now second behind Red Bull in the constructors’ standings. “You look at our [race] pace
by comparison to the long runs on Friday and we were a second slower. A second slower is 30 or 40 points of downforce. Well, we didn’t lose 30 or 40 points of downforce. “These tyres are very
challenging. If you get in the sweet spot then you are in great shape and if you are out of it you are in for a pretty tough time.”