At the start of the season, we set ourselves the ambitious target of finishing sixth in the 2013 Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship. It will be very difficult to achieve this goal but there’s no point being in sport of any kind unless you aim high. Today we took big step forward on the road to that target when, from seventh on the grid, Daniel Ricciardo produced a really excellent and gritty performance to finish in the same place at the chequered flag, which has promoted Scuderia Toro Rosso to seventh in the Constructors’ championship, seven points behind Force India and two ahead of Sauber. Daniel picked up seven points today to add to the one Jean-Eric Vergne got for coming home tenth in Malaysia. 

It was not an easy race for either of our drivers. Given the quality of the cars around him, one might have expected Daniel to slip down the order once the traffic lights went out, but he’d clearly decided this was a day for Aussie grit and he held position until a groan went up in the garage on lap 4. He was on the radio telling us there had been a collision with Rosberg’s Mercedes and there was some front end damage. We called him in and the crew did a very quick 7.2 second change to send him out again on the Medium tyre and with a new nose. He would make two further tyre changes on laps 23 and 38. After that first stop he found himself down in fifteenth and had got as high as seventh at his second stop for new Primes. He then began overtaking cars ahead of him, with some fine aggressive driving, getting as high as eighth and then inherited seventh with three laps to go. 

Jev showed equal determination, but all for no reward. The Frenchman did not get the best of starts and was twentieth on the second lap. By lap fourteen, he had moved back up into the points in tenth place, but two laps later he was involved in a coming-together with Mark Webber in the Red Bull – naturally the two men have diametrically opposed views of who was to blame – and he had to pit with a rear puncture. But the damage to the STR8 was greater than that, as the floor was badly damaged. That meant Jev had to race without the full level of aero downforce and consequently, he struggled for performance. He didn’t give up however and continued to the flag, which he took in twelfth place. 

China delivered a first win of the season for Fernando Alonso who built his success on a demon start when he went from third to second and then whizzed past pole man Hamilton on lap 5 to take the lead. It was all about tyre strategy this afternoon and the top seven on the grid had to start on the Soft Pirelli, putting them on very different schedules to the rest of the field that had opted to go for Mediums. It made for many different leaders as the pit stops played out. Kimi Raikkonen, whose Lotus has seemed kind on tyres so far this year, came home second with Lewis Hamilton, who started from pole, having to settle for the bottom rung of the podium. Vettel and Button were fourth and fifth, while Massa took the sixth spot. In fact, the second Ferrari was lapping quite a bit slower than Daniel and after he had dealt with Di Resta and Grosjean, our boy did try and chase after the Brazilian but there weren’t enough laps left. 

The overall mood in the Toro Rosso camp can therefore be described as positive, as we leave Shanghai and head for the Sakhir circuit in the desert, where the Bahrain Grand Prix takes place this coming Sunday.