If anything else, the Chinese Grand Prix showed that luck can play just as big a role as talent in Formula One. While Fernando Alonso’s victory became obvious as the race progressed, those behind him might have been able to put up much more of a fight were it not for several smaller incidents.

The well-known phrase in F1 of “if Mark Webber didn’t have bad luck, he would have no luck at all” reared its head again throughout the weekend. Webber has, over the years, managed to rack up more unfortunate retirements than any other driver, but China was perhaps one of his worst overall weekends. Qualifying saw Webber run out of fuel due to a mechanical issue, sending him to the back of the grid. Once in the race, he was making steady progress until he crashed in to Jean-Eric Vergne; then at his pit stop, one wheel was not properly attached and ultimately came off, ending the tumultuous weekend before the conclusion of the race. With Vettel’s antagonistic rhetoric about the Malyasian GP incident rearing again, the rumours that Mark is leaving the sport seem to growing every day.

As for Vettel, he too didn’t seem to have much luck for the majority of the race. Falling behind Nico Hülkenburg at the start meant he struggled in the turbulent air of the Sauber, wearing out his tyres quicker than the team had hoped. Similarly, by leaving the fragile soft tyres until Vettel’s final pit stop in the last few laps, it seemed that Red Bull had made a huge error. That he came within one corner of taking Lewis Hamilton for third place, while others on the same tyre were falling way behind, was a masterstroke that showed the true strength of the champion. It was just more salt in Webber’s wounds.

While Hamilton may have had pole position, it was clear that the Mercedes still struggles for overall race pace. Reliability is still an issue, as shown by Nico Rosberg’s second retirement from the first three races. Kimi Räikkönen – who seemed to have genuine pace to rival the Ferrari – had his own bit of bad luck by clipping Sergio Perez in what was deemed to be a 50/50 accident, a simple misjudgement by both drivers.  The Finn’s teammate Romain Grosjean once again was unlucky to catch traffic which ultimately ruined his strategy and race; crucially for the team though, many in the paddock expect both Lotus cars to be much stronger in the Bahrain race, which may be important with Kimi still second in the Drivers Championship.

The midfield teams seemed to have one driver who did much better than the other; Jenson Button and Daniel Ricciardo simply had to stay out of trouble on their way to 5th and 7th, while Sergio Perez simply struggled for pace and Jean-Eric Vergne’s race was ruined by the crash with Webber. Nico Hülkenburg seemed to show the true pace of the Sauber by leading from Vettel and Button early on, but then inexplicably lost all pace on either set of tyres in the second half of the race. Adrian Sutil’s race was ended thanks to Esteban Gutierrez, continuing his poor luck since his heroics at the Australian Grand Prix.

It is telling that, this far in to the article, there has been scant mention of the Ferrari’s. That was because, ultimately, Alonso was so comfortable in controlling the race once he made it to the front that he almost became anonymous while those behind him battled for second. Ferrari seem to have sorted out the majority of their issues from 2012 and it’s fairly obvious that Alonso would be leading the Drivers Championship were it not for his crash in Malaysia. The only blip for the “Prancing Horse” was Felipe Massa’s result; he would likely have been in the battle for the top three were it not for the fact he had to wait one lap longer than the others to pit for the first time, forcing him to stay out on tyres that were losing up to two seconds a lap. Had Ferrari chosen to “double-stack” at the pit stop window, where both drivers pit at the same time, it may have protected Massa slightly.

With the controversial Bahrain Grand Prix only seven days later, there is little opportunity for teams to make improvements. The likelihood is that once again, Ferrari and Lotus will be strong, while Red Bull and Mercedes are likely to be just behind. Whether luck plays a part in the outcome of that race will have to be seen.