Was Rosberg beatable in the race of 'what ifs'?

The Chinese Grand Prix was ultimately a race of 'what ifs' for Formula 1.

What if Lewis Hamilton's engine problem hadn't forced him to start from the back?

What if Daniel Ricciardo's left-rear tyre hadn't shredded while he led the race?

And what if Ferrari's two drivers hadn't collided at the first turn?

As is so often the case in motor racing the first corner defined everything that followed, and the chaos produced at Turn 1 at Shanghai created a brilliant, see-saw spectacle of ups and downs and thrills and spills.

Well, for everyone on the grid apart from Nico Rosberg. The championship leader comfortably collected his third victory of 2016 (his sixth from his last six starts) to further stamp his mark on the early stages of this title battle.

But even for Rosberg there was a question mark: what if he hadn't been released from following Ricciardo's Red Bull in the early stages?

That was arguably the only thing standing in the way of what eventually turned out to be a Rosberg cakewalk.

He gave himself a huge strategic advantage by not using the softest available tyre in Q2 on Saturday, which allowed him to start the race on a tyre that could last three to four times the number of laps the super-soft could.

This opened up the possibility for Rosberg to complete what was generally expected to be a three-stop race on just two, but carried the real risk of leaving him vulnerable to attack at the start.

Rosberg has adapted well to the new single-clutch and radio rules, designed to make the starts more difficult, and he made another good getaway here, but Ricciardo made the most of his softer rear rubber to launch up the inside of the Mercedes into Turn 1.

Rosberg trailed Ricciardo by just under eight tenths of a second for the first two laps, before the left-rear Pirelli on Ricciardo's RB12 tore itself apart coming down the back straight on lap three.

"Coming through Turn 11 and 12 I could feel the rear start to slide so I came on the radio straight away and said 'I think the rears are finished'," Ricciardo explained.

"As soon as I got on the straight I could feel the car start to wobble. I looked in the mirror and the tyre went..."

Rosberg consequently breezed past the Red Bull with DRS open as Ricciardo made for the pits, and we'll never know how long Ricciardo could have held on had debris not punctured his tyre.

We do know the Red Bull is kind on its tyres, but long runs during Friday practice suggested the super-soft would turn to chewing gum after four laps regardless of which car it was fitted to, so it's unlikely Rosberg would have had to wait much longer before being released into clean air.

Ricciardo was never going to be a realistic factor in the 'fight' for victory. Even without the puncture, and the subsequent safety car (for debris on the circuit) that compromised his out-lap, the best finish Red Bull could have hoped for was second.

"On this circuit we compromise our set-up to find pace in sector three, where we know we're weak, and so we're running light on downforce," explained team boss Christian Horner.

The most Ricciardo could have done was made Rosberg vulnerable to attack from behind in those early laps, but that prospect was already lessened because the Mercedes man's most likely challengers took themselves out of contention within yards of the start.

Ferrari felt Kimi Raikkonen could have won the Bahrain Grand Prix with a better start, and Raikkonen felt he threw away a realistic chance of pole position in China with a crucial error at the death of Q3.

He made a much better getaway in China, and briefly looked as though he might have a chance at following Ricciardo past Rosberg through Turn 1. Instead, Raikkonen outbraked himself, which allowed Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel to get inside.

Vettel also went deep as he tried to pass the sister Ferrari, and as Raikkonen attempted to recover his line Vettel jinked right to avoid hitting his team-mate. This would have worked fine had the second Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat not already slotted into the gap vacated on the inside by Vettel.

Kvyat's presence clearly caught Vettel by surprise. Vettel jinked left again, but found himself pincered between a Russian and an Iceman. Inevitable contact followed.

"We lost the front wing and got a puncture," explained Raikkonen, who was sent briefly sideways and tumbled down the order. "We managed to get back to the pits but the race was pretty much done."

One Ferrari out of contention immediately and the other hobbled and now running in the lower reaches of the top 10.

Vettel looked rattled for a while, complaining of a "suicidal" move by Kvyat over the radio, and at pains to apologise to his team for hitting Raikkonen while Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne looked on.

Vettel recovered well ultimately, but by the time he motored back past Kvyat on the back straight with 20 laps to go Rosberg was already well out of reach.

Raikkonen's recovery was less impressive. He was within a second of Ricciardo's Red Bull when the safety car period ended at the start of lap nine of 56. By the end of the race that gap stood at 13.184s...

"The car felt quite tricky, I don't know if something was damaged," said Raikkonen. "After what happened I guess we couldn't do much more. Quite a messy race in many ways, but that's how it goes sometimes."

Conversely, Horner took encouragement from the way his cars kept pace with the Ferraris.

Kvyat, who finished a fine third with what Horner described as a "very, very tidy race", lapped less than a tenth slower than Vettel on average during their comparable middle stints on the soft tyre, and team-mate Ricciardo was faster than both Vettel and Raikkonen during the final stint as he completed his charge back to fourth.

The unknown is how much performance that first-lap collision cost the Ferraris. But that should not detract from what turned into an outstanding drive from Ricciardo.

"The safety car screwed him completely," said Horner. "[But] his recovery from there - I mean he had to pass Raikkonen, Hamilton, all those guys - it was fantastic."

Red Bull is gunning for Ferrari when Renault introduces an engine upgrade for June's Canadian GP, while the Scuderia continues to insist it is fast enough to challenge for victories and that things simply haven't come together yet.

"We've had a lot of bad luck," rued team principal Maurizio Arrivabene. "Of course it's frustrating when these things happen, but we need to persist and sooner or later - I hope sooner - the first step on the podium will come.

"Because the car is good actually. I think under normal circumstances we would have a very good chance to win."

Ferrari's real 'what if' concerns building an entirely clean weekend from start to finish and then seeing where it stacks up relative to Mercedes.

"It's only three races of the season, a lot can happen," added Raikkonen. "Speed-wise we are not too bad - not 100 per cent happy but we were close.

"Not having clean races isn't the way to beat them [Mercedes]. I'm sure we can win races and fight with them, but obviously we have to clean things up.

"We just have to do a better job."

Rosberg continues to warn the world it hasn't see the 'real Ferrari' yet this season, and there is no doubt Mercedes is pushing harder than ever to stay ahead.

But so far Ferrari has only looked a circumstantial victory contender rather than a genuine one.

"They are definitely a threat," insisted Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. "They came a little bit conservative more on the engine this weekend than in Bahrain. It's just a matter of time."

But the pace Rosberg showed on the soft tyre in Q2 in China (within two tenths of both super-soft shod Ferraris), the massive strategic advantage for the race that brought him (which Vettel admitted was beyond the reach of his team), plus the extra power Rosberg summoned for the final sector that bagged him pole in Q3, all suggest Ferrari isn't quite there yet.

And that's without mentioning Rosberg's middle stint on soft tyres, during which he was over 1.1s per lap faster on average than Vettel and Kvyat over a similar number of laps on the same compound...

"The softs held on surprisingly well," said Rosberg. "The car was balanced really well. I pushed all the way because it was a great feeling out there. Also, I wanted to cover safety cars and any eventualities. It was just enjoyable, so why should I slow down?"

Rosberg's only real challenger at the moment, particularly on a front-limited circuit like Shanghai, is Hamilton. But after two "damage limitation" races in Australia and Bahrain, the damage really hit home in China.

The reigning world champion was on the back foot before the cars turned wheels, thanks to a five-place grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change ahead of practice.

Then an MGU-H problem at the start of qualifying - which required a full engine change before the race - prevented him setting a time and consigned him to last on the grid.

Hamilton elected to start from the grid rather than the pitlane, arguing he was better off running the risk of a first-lap accident than taking an extra eight-second hit for starting away from the grid.

As it turned out Hamilton miscalculated, picking up heavy damage as an indirect result of the Ferrari collision at Turn 1.

In the concertina that followed that incident, Felipe Nasr decided first to go inside then around the outside of Raikkonen's hobbled car.

As Nasr moved back to the right he inadvertently collided with Hamilton, whose front wing then folded under the front of the Mercedes on the following straight.

The safety car period for the subsequent debris came too late for Hamilton, who pitted at the end of lap one for a new nose, again on lap five to fit super-softs, and the next lap to switch back to softs for the restart.

That dropped him back to 21st out of 22 cars. He recovered back to the points, but the residual damage to the car restricted him to seventh.

Hamilton challenged Felipe Massa's Williams in the closing stages, but his medium tyres gave up the ghost before he could make a move stick.

"A pretty horrifying race," was Hamilton's assessment. "But there were some good experiences with the overtaking.

"I definitely don't feel the dark cloud that I've had in the past. Of course it's a trying time and for sure there are lots of different emotions and thoughts going through my mind as you see the season started the wrong way, you see the championship moving further away. But this is a part of motor racing.

"Ultimately I wasn't able to show my true ability in terms of pure pace, because I had a damaged car, but that was the same with the last race as well.

"We'll come back. We fell this weekend, we'll get up and try harder next time."

If only Hamilton had enjoyed a clean weekend he would surely have pushed Rosberg all the way. It was just another 'what if' in a long sequence that helped Rosberg pull well clear in China. He's already amassed almost twice the number of points in the world championship as his illustrious team-mate.

Hamilton will have to hope 'what if' this can be only the 12th year in F1 history that a driver who fails to win any of the first three races goes on to win the title?

Jack Brabham failed to score any points at all across the first three grands prix of 1960, but still won the title, but such comebacks are exceedingly rare.

Rosberg is on a roll. But Hamilton will take comfort from the long road that still lies ahead.