Formula One / David Croft / 17 April 2009 /

Lewis Hamilton has given McLaren a welcome boost but Sunday's race could come down to who protects their rubber and Brawn GP have the cars for a third consecutive victory. David Croft reports from Shanghai.

I woke up tired this morning, I spent 90 minutes talking about tyres on air during the first practice session here in Shanghai and I get the feeling that by the time the Chinese Grand Prix is over I might be all tyre-d out!

In trying to pick a form guide for this weekend's race, it became clear even before the cars took to the track that tyre performance was going to the crucial factor for this race.

Bridgestone have brought the super soft and medium compounds, the same compounds used in Australia, for this race and those who can remember back to Melbourne may well have made a mental note that the super softs didn't last very long. Fernando Alonso certainly did and he described that particular compound as a ridiculous choice for here.

What has happened this year is that to spice up the racing the choice of compounds has become wider leading to fears that neither choice is ideal. This places more emphasis on the drivers and, perhaps more importantly, their car's ability to look after their rubber.

Which means that some drivers will have a distinct advantage come race time, purely because of the performance of the tyres, and it's those drivers you need to focus on when looking for a winner.

So which team stands out head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to looking after their tyres? On the evidence of what we've sen so far, all roads point to Brawn GP. Maybe it's not just their diffuser that is keeping them ahead of the pack, and both Jenson Button [2.2] and Rubens Barichello [7.6 ] have major claims for victory this weekend. Incidentally, the first and second drivers at the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix were Barichello and Button. History could repeat itself in 2009.

Friday morning saw Lewis Hamilton [15.5] set the fastest time, a welcome boost for a team under pressure on and off the track. A new front wing and rear diffuser on the defending champions car brought about an improvement, but not enough to see them challenging at the top this weekend. I expect Hamilton to get into the points but not the top three.

Red Bull on the other hand could well put themselves in the frame. Their car seemed to cope well with it's tyres and I believe they pose more of a threat to the Brawn Supremacy than any other team on the grid at the moment. An hour into second practice and Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were first and second fastest. Betfair offer [19.5 ] and [38.0 ] respectively on their chances of winning. It wouldn't surprise me to see Vettel run with less fuel in qualifying, making him the better choice for pole.

Toyota will once again have solid claims to a top three finish. The team are enjoying their best ever start to a season, making the most of the advantage their step diffuser affords them. Now the system has been given the OK by the FIA's International Court of Appeal they need to make hay before the other teams catch up, same for Brawn GP and Williams too, and of course, they can. But Jarno Trulli will have to score points in China for the first time and overcome a sore throat this weekend as well. Trulli is a decent price at [10.5] but I like the way his team-mate has performed in the opening two races of the season and fancy Timo Glock at [27.0 ] to go better here.

Meanwhile, in the Ferrari garage, some concerned faces as both Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen struggled with what at first seemed to be severe graining issues on their tyres, but what later transpired to be 'pickup' problems as well. In short, the car was losing grip and struggling under braking , hardly ideal when slowing down from 200 mph to around 50 mph for the hairpin at the end of the back straight. It looks on the face of things that the Italian team will have an uphill struggle to even register their first point of the season.

Don't forget as well that they intend to abandon their KERS system for this race, a system that Felipe Massa claimed in Malaysia, gives them all their speed. How they must wish that their former Technical Director Ross Brawn was still on their pitwall rather than gathering all the plaudits at the other end of the pitlane.

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