Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg won the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday for his first career Formula One victory in 111 starts.
Rosberg won by a massive 20.6 seconds over McLaren’s Jenson Button after making just two pits stops and managing to hold off the rest of the field on worn tyres.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” said Rosberg, who started from his first pole position.
“It’s really nice to see how quickly we are now progressing. We didn’t expect to be that fast today.”
Button’s McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton was third, followed by Red Bull duo Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.
Defending champion Vettel started 11th on the grid and, at one stage, moved up to second, but couldn’t hold off Button, Hamilton and Webber in the closing stages.
With his third third-place finish of the season, Hamilton takes the lead in the driver standings with 45 points, two ahead of Button in second. Fernando Alonso of Ferrari is third with 37 points, followed by Webber (36) and Vettel (28). Rosberg moves into sixth with 25.
McLaren leads the constructor standings with 88 points, followed by Red Bull in second with 64 and Ferrari on 37.
Rosberg’s teammate, seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, had started the race second, but retired on lap 13 due to his right front wheel not being fitted properly during his first pit stop.
Mercedes appears to have remedied the quick tyre degradation problem that led to disappointing results in the first two races of the year. Mercedes has been fast in qualifying this season but failed to keep up with other teams in races.
Rosberg, who took just one lap in the final session of qualifying on Saturday to preserve his tyres, said the two-stop strategy paid off on Sunday.
“The tyres lasted as many laps as we were hoping for so it all just went to plan,” he said.
The German also benefited from a sloppy pit stop by Button at the end of lap 39 when the Briton lost several crucial seconds and came out of the pit behind a pack of drivers.
As Button jockeyed with Vettel, Webber, Hamilton and Lotus drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean for position, Rosberg was able to widen his lead to 25 seconds and coast to victory.