LEWIS HAMILTON put Mercedes back on top with a win at the Chinese Grand Prix yesterday, but it may have come at a cost — another schism with teammate Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton made sure there would be no repeat of Ferrari’s surprising win two weeks ago at the Malaysian Grand Prix, conserving his tires to withstand a challenge by the Italian team’s Sebastian Vettel and easily capture his fourth Chinese Grand Prix and the 35th victory of his career.

Rosberg finished second again and angrily accused his teammate of holding him back in the race.

Hamilton’s tire-conservation strategy ensured he could open up a sizeable lead over Vettel (third) after the second pit stop, but Rosberg said afterwards that Hamilton’s measured pace allowed the Ferrari driver to stay close to him and caused his tires to wear by the end of the race.

“It’s just now interesting to hear from you, Lewis, that you were just thinking about yourself with the pace in front and unnecessarily that was compromising my race,” he said.

“It was unnecessarily close with Sebastian as a result and it cost me a lot of race time.”

Hamilton responded by smiling and saying he didn’t intentionally try to impede his teammate.

“It’s not my job to look after Nico’s race. My job’s to manage the car and bring the car home as healthy and as fast as possible and that’s what I did,” he said.

“I just was focusing on myself. If Nico wanted to get by he could have tried, but he didn’t.”

Tire degradation is what cost Mercedes the race in the tropical heat of Malaysia two weeks ago, so the marque was careful not to let it happen again on a warmer-than-expected track in Shanghai.

The safety car came out with two laps remaining after Max Verstappen’s Toro Rosso car stalled on the track. The race came to an anticlimactic finish with the drivers rounding the circuit twice behind the safety car.

By Our Sports Desk