Phil: I agree entirely with my co-blogger that we both knew Nico Rosberg could do it, the only doubt was whether, given the extent to which success in F1 depends on having the right machinery at the right time, he ever would. As my co-blogger has pointed out, Nico took his first win at his 111th race - only Button, Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello have had to wait longer for their maiden victory.
Let's be under no illusions that Nico was simply in the right place at the right time, and took a lucky first win, as plenty of other drivers have done. He was genuinely the class of the field in Shanghai - pole by a margin of half a second, and then the win with a margin of 20s.
Lovers of statistics will note that this was the first race won by anyone other than the Big 5 (Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Button and Alonso) since Barrichello won at Monza in 2009. 1982 champion Keke Rosberg becomes the first driver to have won a race himself and then seen his son win one (Graham Hill and Gilles Villeneuve were dead when their sons won the world championship). Nico becomes the first man to win in a Mercedes since Fangio in 1955, and the first German driver to win at the wheel of a Mercedes since Hermann Lang, in the 1939 Swiss Grand Prix - held less than a fortnight before the outbreak of war.
This win should improve Nico's confidence no end, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him take another win before the end of the season - assuming Mercedes continue to have the pace they showed at Shanghai.
One thing is for certain - we are in for a cracker of a season. Three races in, and still no real pattern and no clear favourite. The last six races have been won by six different drivers, and the world championship is currently led by a man who hasn't won so far this season but who has managed three third places. As his boss Martin Whitmarsh said yesterday, 'who would try to predict who's going to win the next race?'
I wouldn't.
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