McLaren get it right to claim one-two on a wet China day

JENSON Button hailed his Chinese Grand Prix victory as the best of his career as the reigning world champion once again made the right strategy call to win a dramatic race in Shanghai.

The 30-year-old switched tyres early to secure his first victory as a McLaren driver in Australia last month and he again chose wisely yesterday as he opted to stay out on dry tyres when many had chosen to pit early and switch to intermediates after showers fell from the start of the race.

He then quickly climbed into the lead after starting from fifth on the grid while Red Bull duo Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber – who qualified in first and second respectively – headed in the other direction.

A second appearance of the safety car on the circuit as debris was cleared after Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari had lost his front wing erased Button's advantage at the front, but he kept his cool to maintain pole and lead McLaren's first one-two of the season ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

"For me, it is my best victory," he said. "Every one you win becomes your best victory but this was pretty tough conditions," he said. "The good thing is our pace was very good today. It wasn't just the call of weather, it was good pace. At the end we were two seconds a lap quicker than other people.

"Staying on the dry tyres was the right thing. You would not think it driving round as it was raining quite a bit. We got a lot of grip from those tyres, we just had to be a little careful because every time you arrived at a corner it was in a different condition from the previous lap, either better or worse.

"It was definitely the right call and when the team called me in for inters that was the right call as well because the tyres had started graining." The victory means Button now leads the drivers' championship with 60 points, ten ahead of Nico Rosberg after the Mercedes driver claimed his second successive podium finish with third place while second for Hamilton means he is third in the standings on 49 points alongside Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

The result was the least the 2008 champion deserved as he once again produced a superb drive from sixth to finish just 1.5 seconds behind his McLaren team-mate. Hamilton has endured frustrating qualifying sessions in each of the last three grands prix but has then gone on to prove his credentials as one of the best drivers in F1 on race day.

"I am very happy that we have got a one-two and hopefully that is the first of many," he said. "It was definitely an exciting race.

"I just felt every time I made up places, somehow I would lose them again. It was a very, very hard race but I am very happy with the result."

Hamilton was involved in the most fascinating of battles with Michael Schumacher on two occasions in the race and got the better of the Mercedes driver both times.

"It was not easy. It took ages to get past him," he added. "We had a good battle but once I got past I was gone."

Hamilton escaped with a reprimand for a pit lane incident involving himself and Vettel after the pair had come in for new tyres but left their pit boxes at the same time and proceeded to race each other down the lane, albeit at the speed limit.

Meanwhile, Rosberg has warned his F1 rivals there is more to come from Mercedes after the German gained his second successive podium place.

He said: "It's fantastic to be on the podium for the second race in succession. It was an eventful race and we made very good choices which put us in contention for the result.

"When it started raining again, I suffered quite badly from tyre degradation on the intermediates and Jenson was able to get past.

"We didn't seem to quite have the pace on inters but third place is great and we've made a step in the right direction this weekend.

"There's more to come from the team so it's really good to be heading into the European season with some strong results and second place in the drivers' championship."