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Christian Horner says he doesn’t know why Red Bull lost performance in China after being so strong in the first two races, but expects form to ebb and flow each weekend.

It was lack of one-lap pace relative to the opposition that ultimate tipped RBR towards starting on the medium tyre and using the soft at the end.

“I’m not sure, to be honest with you,” said Horner when asked about the car’s Shanghai form. “The last couple of years this track hasn’t been out strongest. It has a heavy emphasis on front wear and degradation, you tend to be front limited here rather than rear. So we’ll see next weekend whether things move around in Bahrain.

“I think we’re seeing that qualifying is paying less of a premium than trying to preserve the tyres. Our car performs very, very well, it’s a quick car, but a quick car abuses the tyre more, and the tyres can’t cope with that.

“Obviously then we have to adapt our approach and set-up and the way that we operate the car to ensure that we get more out of the tyres. It’s the same for everybody, it’s just a different way of going about things.”

Meanwhile Horner insisted that Vettel would have been at least third in China had he not got caught behind Nico Hulkenberg in the opening stint.

“Seb managed to pass Jenson, who he knew he had to clear quickly, but then Hulkenberg cruised past both of them, and that cost him quite a bit of time in that first stint.

“If Sebastian had found one more second in that first stint and not been locked up behind him his race would have been quite different. He would certainly have been on the podium, and maybe even second. I think it was the right thing to do, it was worth giving it a go.”

Stefano Domenicali says that while Fernando Alonso’s Chinese GP was welcome Ferrari has to keep scoring consistently and find more pace in order to maintain the Spaniard’s title momentum.

Alonso’s early retirement in Malaysia could prove expensive, and he’s already nine points behind Sebastian Vettel.

“I think for sure the car seems better this year, better in terms of pure performance, even if it’s not enough, because we need to make sure it’s better and better,” said Domenicali.

“For me there is one thing that we don’t have to forget if you compare with last year. Last year even if the car was not the best, let me put it this way, we were able to score a lot of points in the first half of the season. And then we lost that trace and it was more difficult. We need to score I would say relatively to the others the same kind of points, and I would say in the second half of it we can increase.

“For sure it’s a good base to work from, and what we have seen in the first three races it’s quite a difficult picture to understand. Some cars are very strong in qualifying, a bit less during the race. We also saw the other way around. For sure for us it’s important to improve the qualifying because it’s essential to try to start as [close to the] front as possible.”

Domenicali admitted that it’s hard to judge what the current pecking order is: “We have another situation in Bahrain, with different conditions. We will see where the performance of our car relative to the others will be. Personally I don’t really have a clear picture of what is really the pure performance classification, because we have to divide qualifying/race, so it’s not easy this year.”

Domenicali said that good strategy, consistent pace and getting past traffic were the keys to Alonso’s win China.

“I think what we saw already on Friday was that it seemed we had a good pace for the race, and so what I believe is the most important thing today is that really we were spot-on on the strategy.

“The difference today was the consistency in all the different situations with the race pace, that was very strong. We had a good start, and this is another thing that was very important. And I have to say that the key factor was to try to be in front of the traffic as quickly as possible, because that could present a real problem later on during the race.

“And then we also had when there was a yellow flag the fact that Fernando was behind Jenson, and we couldn’t use the DRS to get rid – in the sporting way of course! – as soon as possible, because we couldn’t really use it.

“It was a bit unfortunate but at the end of the day then he was clear and he was able to control the pace of Kimi and Lewis behind that was really the key of the success of Fernando. I’m very pleased also for him because after Malaysia it was really what he wanted and what he deserved.”

An awful weekend for Mark Webber in China was topped off by a three-place grid penalty for Bahrain following his collision with Jean-Eric Vergne

After his qualifying penalty Webber opted to start from the pits, and he did one lap on the soft tyres before abandoning them, leaving him with mediums for the duration.

He was making good progress when he made contact with Vergne. After a stop for a new nose his right rear wheel came adrift, which led to retirement and a fine for the team for an unsafe release.

“Obviously from the pitlane you’re always up against it, but in the end the first part of the race wasn’t going too bad,” he said. “We managed to pick some people off, and work the first part of the strategy not too bad, and that was going to plan.

“Unfortunately the contact with Jean-Eric wasn’t part of the plan, it wasn’t race ending, and I could still get the car back to the pits, and it was not too far off the strategy.

“There was a bit of damage to the front wing, so we had to change that. We had a pit stop which we thought went smoothly, and we have to look at why the rear tyre came off the car.”

Webber believed that the Toro Rosso driver was giving him room, even though they were battling for position.

“I thought Jean-Eric was being very, very co-operative initially, on the braking I thought that’s fair enough, we’ll roll round there together, he’s going to give me some room. But then he came down and I couldn’t get out of it at that point. It probably looks quite clumsy, I haven’t seen it obviously, but it was disappointing that we made contact.”

Regarding his recent run of problems, he said: “When you get a little bit in the shit, then the shit can keep on coming. If we had a smooth qualifying, it makes the race a little bit more straightforward. But in the end you start from the pitlane, you can still get something from there, which clearly was the target, and everything was going completely on target until we had contact with Jean-Eric.”

While Fernando Alonso had a perfect afternoon in Shanghai Kimi Raikkonen had a bad start and later damaged his nose in an incident with Sergio Perez, having got caught behind the cars that started on medium tyres.

Nevertheless his second place keeps him firmly in the title battle after a frustrating race in Malaysia.

“I think we just had wrong settings,” said Raikkonen of his poor start. “The practice start was very good but then it was really bad the real start and we lost some positions and after that the car was okay, but I had a little accident, some problems with Perez and we damaged the nose and the front wing.

“I was surprised there was no more damage, because I hit him quite hard. Also bit surprised that we didn’t have any more problems after that. A bit too much understeer, and we were destroying the front tyre because of that, but we still could fight for second place and get quite a good result in the end. Obviously we wanted to try to win, but today with all the issues, it was not possible.”

Kimi said it was impossible to quantify the loss of performance: “There’s no way to tell or not how much the front wing damage affected the whole race, but obviously the car is not designed like that, so it’s not going to help. But I cannot tell you if it’s a tenth or half a second per lap.

“I was surprised how good the car was, even with quite a lot of damage. It was unfortunate, but I think we also have to be a bit lucky not to lose more. Hopefully next race we can have a normal race and be up there again fighting for a win.”

Fernando Alonso put the disappointment of his early collision and retirement in Malaysia behind him by securing a superb victory in Shanghai.

Alonso didn’t put a foot wrong all day, keeping his tyres alive better than most of his rivals, timing his pit stops perfectly, and finding consistent pace.

“Definitely it was nearly a perfect Sunday for us, with not any problem in the race,” said Alonso. “The start was clean, it was good. We managed to overtake Kimi. And then in the first stint we managed to pass Lewis as well. The car felt a little bit better on the degradation side, let’s say. And then in the rest of the race, obviously you need to take care of the tyres a little bit, you need to manage the gap with the guys behind.”

Alonso admitted that even he struggled to comprehend what was a complicated race.

“It was not so easy to understand the race sometimes. We were overtaking the McLarens, Hulkenberg, Sebastian, so it was a little bit of a mix. So it was not an easy race, and there were some moments of action let’s say and the risk is there when you have to do an overtaking manoeuvre and you have to manage that as well. The team did a perfect job with the set-up of the car for qualy and the race, perfect pit stop times and pit stops executed let’s say.

“At the end of the race the victory is a good reward for the team, well deserved after the disappointment in Malaysia and you know, the car felt good. The two races we finished, one was second and the victory today, so definitely it’s a positive start to this championship. We need to keep going like that, in this direction, with good weekends, with not any extra risk and hopefully in Bahrain we can score some good points again.”

Alonso said it was too early to talk about championship rivals: “We need to wait until maybe after the summer break or something like that to clearly see the real contenders. Hopefully we are in that group after the summer. Hopefully Felipe can be in that group as well, that will mean that the car is going well, and I think at the moment Lotus, Red Bull and Mercedes are in the same position as us, let’s say. I don’t see anyone has a clear advantage.”

Kimi Raikkonen will start the Chinese GP from second place after Lotus found some of the qualifying performance that it has been missing over the past two seasons.

Raikkonen suffered badly last year from lack of one-lap pace, which regularly compromised his races.

However there was a significant margin to pole man Lewis Hamilton, and Raikkonen was cautious on his prospects for Sunday.

“I think the gap is quite big still and we don’t have that speed right now,” said the Finn. “So, second is not bad, I think it’s the best that I’ve been with the team ever. Not too bad, but of course you’d rather be in first place but I guess we don’t have the speed. I think we are missing downforce in the middle sector a bit, but we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

Although there’s a consensus that the Lotus is better on its tyres than rivals, Raikkonen said that the issue was not clear cut, in part because the car has changed a lot as updates have been added and taken away over the weekend.

“It’s a big question mark because we were pretty happy yesterday but the car is not exactly the same as it was then. For sure, we had some issues with the front tyres yesterday, but that should be pretty easy to change.

“Every day seems to be a bit different, so I don’t know if it’s going to be OK or not. Usually we’ve been pretty OK, apart from the last race when we had some issues. Hopefully it turns out to be good tomorrow but I think it will be very close and whoever gets things exactly right might make enough of a difference to win.”

Mark Webber has been excluded from qualifying in China, and will thus start the race at the back of the grid.

The Red Bull driver stopped on track during Q2 when he ran out of fuel after the team had a problem in the pits.

After the FIA checked the car he was found to have only 0.150 of a litre still in the tank. The rules specify that cars should have a litre left, plus what the FIA deems necessary to drive back to the pits, if the car has stopped on track.

Before the penalty was confirmed Webber said: “Q1 went to plan and then we started Q2 and had a fuel pressure problem and couldn’t get the car back to the pits. And that was it.

“Friday went very well for me, this morning went well for me, this is out of my hands. I can’t be disappointed from my performances.”

Sebastian Vettel will start the Chinese GP from ninth place after being one of only two drivers to tackle Q3 on medium tyres – thus guaranteeing that he will be able to run a long first stint in the race.

Vettel aborted his lap after locking up but in any case was unlikely to have finished the session much higher than eighth, ahead of Jenson Button, who took the same decision.

“It’s a long race tomorrow, it’s a tough circuit on tyres, we know that,” said Vettel. “We learned a little bit yesterday. We decided to go opposite to the majority, whether that’s the right decision we’ll know tomorrow.

“We know the tyres are not great, and obviously that makes you think, and sometimes come up with a different approach.

The majority of cars were out on the soft tyre, which is the qualifying tyre, so even if we finished the lap we don’t have a fair chance to match them.”

Vettel said he didn’t think he had damaged the tyres when he locked up.

“There seemed to be very little load on the car. We need to find out why –I had quite a long pedal, so something broke. I think the lap was not really competitive anyways, so it didn’t matter too much.

“Probably the only other car on mediums was Jenson, and judging by his 2m lap time he wasn’t pushing very hard, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow. I checked the tyre, there was no damage, so it should be fine.”

Pirelli F1 boss Paul Hembery remains confident that China will be a two or three stop race, despite teams experiencing worse degradation than expected with the soft tyre today.

Most teams found that the tyre lasted only a handful of laps before its performance dropped off badly, but Hembery believes that the track will improve.

“Degradation has not been excessive on the medium compound, which at 0.2 seconds per lap is in line with our expectations,” said Hembery. “Rosberg’s fastest time in FP1, for example, was set on an old set of medium tyres that had already covered 10 laps and Massa also completed quite a long run on the soft tyres in FP2.

“In total, we’d expect the soft tyre to last between 11 to 12 laps in the race and the medium tyre for about 18 laps. This would suggest a maximum of three pit stops but it’s also possible that we’ll see two stops if the track keeps on evolving at this rate.

“We experienced some graining on the front left, particularly with the soft tyre, which has resulted in higher levels of degradation than we would like, although we are confident that this will come down as the weekend goes on. The performance gap between the two compounds is around 1.5s, which is a little higher than we initially expected but it’s still early days here.”

Jenson Button remains convinced that McLaren could be the pacesetter before the end of this season.

Button maintains that the decision to go radical relative to the 2012 car will pay off in the long term as the MP4-28 has more development potential than rivals. McLaren opted for a higher nose and revised suspension over the winter.

“It’s so easy for people after Melbourne to say let’s go to last year’s car,” said Jenson when asked by this writer. “I think even from my point of view it’s really difficult to not think like that, because the last race of the year we were quickest – the last few races we were quickest. But what we have done with the car I think is the right thing. It’s hurt us a lot, especially at the first race, and it might still here and in Bahrain.

“But the idea was to have a car that we could develop through the season. We felt that at the end of last year we were at the end of everything with last year’s car. I think the one thing that surprised is that we’re the only one that’s gone our route – we’re the only team to do that. We expected all of the top teams to do the same thing, so we didn’t think we would have lost anything at the first race.

“We thought the smaller teams would keep the same tub, go the same direction, and slightly improve through the winter – and they would be competitive at the first race. We didn’t expect most teams, or all teams apart from us, to go in the same direction. That’s what’s hurt us, and it’s hurt us in terms of a lot of points. But the championship is still completely open, there are still 17 races to go, and if we can turn it around in a few races and be fighting at the front that’s every encouraging for the rest of the season.”

Asked if he was worried if others could still develop faster he said: “I don’t think they will.”