page_title: 2015 Chinese Grand Prix
section_title: Race
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Chinese Grand Prix / Report / Race
caption_attribution_description: English: Kvyat retiring from 2015 Chinese Grand Prix
context_page_description: The 2015 Chinese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race that was held on 12 April 2015 at the Shanghai International Circuit in Shanghai, China. The race was the third round of the 2015 season, and marked the twelfth time that the Chinese Grand Prix has been run as a round of the Formula One World Championship.
  Lewis Hamilton was the defending race winner and went into the weekend with a three-point lead in the world championship over Sebastian Vettel, who had surprised the field by taking victory in the previous round at Malaysia. Hamilton took pole position during Saturday's qualifying, the 41st of his career and the third in a row. He went on to win the race from his teammate Nico Rosberg.
context_section_description: When the race started at 14:00 local time (UTC +8), Kimi Räikkönen managed to pass both Williams cars on the first lap to move up to fourth, while Nico Rosberg was able to fend off Sebastian Vettel for second. On the second lap, Carlos Sainz Jr. spun his Toro Rosso and dropped down the order. Nico Hülkenberg became the first retirement on lap ten, when he parked his Force India in the gravel after his gearbox failed. During the pit stops, Ferrari attempted an undercut by pitting Sebastian Vettel early on lap 13, a strategy in which a car running behind is pitting early in order to use a fast out-lap on fresh tyres to jump ahead of a rival without having to overtake them on track. However this was unsuccessful as Mercedes reacted by pitting Rosberg the following lap, allowing Rosberg to maintain track position over Vettel. On lap 17, Daniil Kvyat retired from the race when his Red Bull started to smoke.
  After the first pit stops, the Mercedes drivers had to manage their tyres in order to cover from a possible attack by Ferrari, who had an extra set of fresh tyres saved from qualifying. Rosberg however complained over the radio about Hamilton in front of him driving too slow, which caused him to back into the charging Ferraris. He was unable to risk driving too close behind Hamilton, because dispersed air from the back of the car was accelerating tyre degradation. Hamilton was therefore asked by the team to pick up the pace.
  The top three began to spread out in the second half of the race, and by lap 54 Lewis Hamilton was leading Rosberg by 10.06 seconds, with Vettel a further 12.12 seconds behind Rosberg. However, due to Ferrari's earlier attempt to undercut Rosberg by pitting Vettel early, Räikkönen's tyres were 4 laps fresher than his teammate's, and he closed in on Vettel over the final stint. Having emerged from his final pit stop 4.84 seconds behind Vettel on lap 35, Räikkönen had closed the gap to 1.37 seconds by lap 54. However, the chance of a battle between the Ferrari teammates was extinguished after a transmission failure on Max Verstappen's Toro Rosso, who was stranded on the start/finish-straight, brought out the safety car for the final two laps, meaning that the race ended under safety car conditions.
  Hamilton crossed the line to win his second race of the season, with Rosberg following him home in 2nd and Vettel completing the podium with 3rd. Pastor Maldonado had an eventful race. On lap 33, while running in seventh position ahead of teammate Romain Grosjean, he missed the pit entry and lost time, dropping several positions. He then proceeded to spin his car on lap 39 as he attempted to make up for lost time, and on lap 48 he had a collision with Jenson Button following a long battle for position, damaging his car and retiring with rear brake failure a few laps later. The stewards later deemed Button to be at fault for the incident.
caption: Daniil Kvyat retired from the race on lap 17.
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