Grapevine: Paddock Life - Shanghai edition

After coming through a really challenging weekend, and having seen his title rivals make an embarrassing slip up right in front of his eyes, it was hard to keep the grin from this man's face for hours after the race.

Yes, Michele Giuntoli was bounding around the paddock after getting one up over his Renault rivals right in front of billions of fans.

Immediately after the podium ceremony, Alonso had dropped his bottle of champagne down to a mechanic to take for the team. But, on a day when Renault let a great opportunity slip through their hands, it was with a certain irony that this time the bottle was not caught and it smashed on the ground.

Having seen this spectacle, Schumacher duly leaned over the podium barrier and dropped his bottle down to his chief mechanic. Giuntoli knew the pressure was on him not to mess up and, amid encouraging whoops from his team and onlookers, he duly caught it perfectly.

The Ferrari team went mad and Giuntoli punched the air in delight, leaping over to greet his teammates with high fives and huge grins. It was almost as though he had won the championship itself.

Formula One had always been keen to get itself on to the Chinese stage, but even in the third year of the Shanghai Grand Prix there were plenty of people in the paddock who still needed convincing why the sport had made such an effort.

Few would deny that the Shanghai International Circuit is an impressive facility, with the media centre right over the start-finish line giving the best view of the season and the paddock big enough to get Jenson Button lost on the first day trying to find his team hut. But it was all the hassle surrounding the city that unimpressed a lot of people - and even left some in despair.

From the trouble that some had with their visas (one team member said: "It is weird that they didn't want to give me a visa for a place that I didn't want to go") to the hours spent stuck in traffic jams or scything through three lanes of fast-moving traffic in a suicidal taxi or circuit shuttle bus at 100mph, it all eventually got too much for the F1 natives over the course of the weekend.

By the end of each day, people's nerves were getting a little frayed - especially with the Chinese officials rigorously following orders and refusing to stop the infrequent F1 shuttle buses at anywhere other than designated stops.

It was little wonder, then, that on one night a mutiny broke out in one of the buses. As the driver patiently sat in stationary traffic for an age, right outside a hotel that a number of journalists were staying in, a fracas began when the driver refused to let anyone out early.

After one attempt to force the door open failed as the angry driver said he would only drop people off at the designated stop, former Friday Minardi driver Bas Leinders, who now works for Belgian TV, became a revolutionary.

He jumped on the 'door open' button, charged for the exit and, when a Chinese media aide tried to block his path, he raised his fist and shouted: "Do you want some of this then?"

The official stepped aside, the door opened, everyone jumped out and the bus probably sat in traffic for another hour before finally reaching its destination.

Even outside the transportation nightmare of the weekend, the Chinese love their red tape and regulations - almost as much as Pat Symonds and a number of other F1 regulars enjoy their cigarettes.

So in true Shanghai style it was no wonder that the two loves would come into conflict just to further wind up an already weary paddock.

With a ban on smoking in public buildings in place, the local authorities got all excited when they saw mechanics puffing away at the back of the garages during Friday practice.

Straight away the bureaucrats swung into action and the Shanghai Fire Bureau duly fined the Shanghai International Circuit nearly £2,000 (UKP) for what they felt was a breach of the regulations.

It was lucky for some that there wasn't a ban of beards either - especially when Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso arrived in Shanghai sprouting some extra facial hair.

But while Button has always liked experimenting with his whiskers and was just displaying a bit more length than normal, Alonso was brandishing a completely new arrangement.

And it wasn't long before his moustache and chin beard combination, allied to his dark bushy eyebrows and hair, starting drawing comparison with Johnny Depp's character Jack Sparrow in the film Pirates of the Caribbean.

Similar beards began appearing on various Renault mechanics' faces, and sure enough the team made the most of ribbing Alonso - before realising that it would be much better to shift that mocking to title rival Michael Schumacher.

So one of the Renault mechanics dug out a poster from the Pirates of the Caribbean film, with Jack Sparrow on one side and his film ally Orlando Bloom's character on the right - except Bloom's face had been replaced with that of Schumacher.

And emblazoned down one side was the slogan: "You don't bring a knife to a gunfight, Michael."

After mass dampers and the drama of Alonso's Monza weekend, Renault's defiance was more than justified, judging by the pace of their car over the weekend. The team knew that it was their pitstop errors that cost them dearly.

In fact, the Renault team spirit remains strong - even though Alonso is leaving the team for new pastures at the end of the season.

And a little moment from Thursday's team track walk in Shanghai gave a little insight into just how the relationship between driver and staff is as good as it ever was.

Alonso was chatting to director of engineering Pat Symonds about life, the universe and everything when talk turned to the Spaniard's recent trip to Fuji for a promotional event.

He was explaining how he found the future home of the Japanese Grand Prix, and how its unique layout - with a very long straight and some tight and twisty sections - had left him puzzled about how to approach next year's race.

"I don't really have a clue about the kinds of level of downforce I will be running there," said Alonso, looking to Symonds.

The response was swift.

"I do," smiled Symonds. "McLaren levels. Low downforce and lots of drag..."