Nico Rosberg dominated in China to win the race, his first and Mercedes first since 1955, with a 20 second margin to McLaren’s Jenson Button.
Rosberg converted his first pole position into the race win in a fairly straight forward fashion, unaware of the drama behind him which saw just a few seconds covering the top handful of cars.
McLaren completed the all-Mercedes powered podium with Lewis Hamilton coming in behind his team-mate to secure a hat-trick of thirds in 2012.
Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel duelled in the closing laps, with the Australian coming out on top to take fourth and 12 points, whilst Vettel had to settle for fifth having climbed from P11.
Romain Grosjean scored his first race finish for Lotus, and his first points for the team with sixth, ahead of the two Williams cars. Alonso and Kobayashi completed the top ten.
For a full race report, check out our live race report here.
2012 Chinese GP Results: (Fastest lap: K. Kobayashi 1:39.960)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Gap | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 25 | |
| 02. | J. Button | McLaren | +20.6 | 18 |
| 03. | L. Hamilton | McLaren | +26.0 | 15 |
| 04. | M. Webber | Red Bull | +27.9 | 12 |
| 05. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | +30.4 | 10 |
| 06. | R. Grosjean | Lotus | +31.4 | 8 |
| 07. | B. Senna | Williams | +34.5 | 6 |
| 08. | P. Maldonado | Williams | +35.6 | 4 |
| 09. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | +37.2 | 2 |
| 10. | K. Kobayashi | Sauber | +38.7 | 1 |
| 11. | S. Perez | Sauber | +41.0 | |
| 12. | P. di Resta | Force India | +42.2 | |
| 13. | F. Massa | Ferrari | +42.7 | |
| 14. | K. Raikkonen | Lotus | +50.5 | |
| 15. | N. Hulkenberg | Force India | +51.2 | |
| 16. | J. Vergne | Toro Rosso | +51.7 | |
| 17. | D. Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | +1:03.1 | |
| 18. | V. Petrov | Caterham | +1 lap | |
| 19. | T. Glock | Marussia | +1 lap | |
| 20. | C. Pic | Marussia | +1 lap | |
| 21. | P. de la Rosa | HRT | +1 lap | |
| 22. | N. Karthikeyan | HRT | +2 laps | |
| 23. | H. Kovalainen | Caterham | +3 laps | |
| 24. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | +44 laps |
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