This was a simply lovely weekend for the current Formula 1 world champion as Max Verstappen is victorious at the Chinese Grand Prix, following on his sprint victory and pole position in the qualifying. The Red Bull driver finished ahead of Lando Norris and Sergio Perez.
On the back of scoring Red Bull Racing’s 100th pole position, Verstappen was never threatened throughout the first race in Shanghai since 2019 and effortlessly overcame two safety car restarts in the middle period of the this eventful race.
After leading the pack away without any real threat from behind, Verstappen pushed a 1.6-second gap at the end of the first lap over Fernando Alonso, who had opened his race with a great move around the outside of Sergio Perez into the first corner.
The usual Verstappen break-build that contemporary Formula 1 fans have come to expect ended up being eradicated by a safety car on lap 20, as the Sauber of Valtteri Bottas came to a halt at Turn 11 with an engine problem – which prompted an eventual virtual safety car prior to the emergence of the Mercedes-AMG GT.
On the restart, a push on Yuki Tsunoda from Kevin Magnussen put the RB driver out, causing another safety car period to stop the progress that Verstappen was able to make.
Additional, there was a hit from the back on Daniel Ricciardo as Lance Stroll misjudge the safety car restart. This caused damage on the RB and Daniel was forced to retire for the second time while Lance received a ten-second time penalty.
Tasked with leading the field away on both restarts, Verstappen opened the throttle on the exit of Turn 14 to hold his position and, when the second safety car period came to an end on lap 32, he resumed his progress at the front of the pack.
He was now leading from Lando Norris, who took his single stop of the race under the virtual safety car, and the decision from Red Bull to put both Verstappen and Perez under the full safety car a few laps later ensured that the McLaren driver moved out in second.
Initially keeping Verstappen in his sights, Norris could not maintain the same level of pace as the lead Red Bull and instead focused on preserving the runner-up spot over Perez – who also dropped behind Charles Leclerc after his pitstop.
As such, Verstappen maintained his level of race pace and crossed the line with 13.7 seconds in hand over Norris. The McLaren driver put together an expertly managed second stint despite his team’s reservations about its pace in China, while Perez could not made any real impression, the gap between the other podium finishers stood at 5.3 seconds.
Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished fourth and fifth after finding a way to make a one-stop – designated Plan D over the radio – work – although Leclerc was able to extend his first stint and managed to secure a stop under the VSC on lap 21, Sainz had pitted four laps before and had a tougher challenge to drag his efforts on the hard tyre to the end.
Sainz had also been able to resist a brief period of pressure from George Russell, who looked almost certain to catch the Ferrari driver until eventually having to back off to save his tyres – preserving sixth in the process for Mercedes.
The two had moved up a position when Fernando Alonso enacted a late stop as Aston Martin gambled on a set of soft tyres during the safety car. This gave Alonso the momentum to move up to fifth, having lost positions as a result of stopping on lap 11 and giving track position to those who benefitted from the safety car period to make scheduled stops.
But Alonso needed to stop again as the softs wouldn’t make it to the end, and thus switched to mediums for the final 12 laps. Fernando fell out of the top ten, but he managed to put together a string of moves to take advantage of those on worn hard tyres to break into seventh.
Oscar Piastri held off Lewis Hamilton for eighth despite damage to his diffuser. On the first safety car restart, Alonso outbraked himself and caused both Russell and Piastri to check up. Daniel Ricciardo then nudged the back of Oscar’s car, but was in turn hit from behind by Lance Stroll. The resulting diffuser damage caused Ricciardo to retire.
Nico Hulkenberg thus picked up the final point as a result of that chaos, finishing 2.3 seconds clear of Alpine’s Esteban Ocon to secure a vital point for the Haas team.
So an eventful Chinese Grand Prix thanks to the safety car and yet it was inevitable that Max Verstappen winng. The speed of the current champion is impressive and the strategy calls by Red Bull is excellent. So it will be interesting if the others can challenge when we go to Miami next and yet another sprint weekend.
Chinese Grand Prix, race results:
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:40:52.554
2 Lando Norris McLaren +13.773s
3 Sergio Perez Red Bull +19.160s
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +23.623s
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari +33.983s
6 George Russell Mercedes +38.724s
7 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +43.414s
8 Oscar Piastri McLaren +56.198s
9 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +57.986s
10 Nico Hulkenberg Haas +60.476s
11 Esteban Ocon Alpine +62.812s
12 Alexander Albon Williams +65.506s
13 Pierre Gasly Alpine +69.223s
14 Zhou Guanyu Sauber +71.689s
15 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +82.786s
16 Kevin Magnussen Haas +87.533s
17 Logan Sargeant Williams +95.110s
Daniel Ricciardo RB DNF
Yuki Tsunoda RB 26 DNF
Valtteri Bottas Sauber DNF
Max Verstappen converted pole position into victory in a Chinese Grand Prix full of incidents and overtakes, leading home McLaren’s Lando Norris and Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez to make it four wins from five races so far this season.
Verstappen led the vast majority of a strategic encounter at the Shanghai International Circuit that featured a Virtual Safety Car and two full Safety Car periods, the Dutchman keeping his cool at the front as the drama unfolded behind him.
Norris was one of three drivers, along with Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, to make just one pit stop, having benefitted from the VSC and Safety Car phases to jump Perez for second position, which he managed to hold to the finish.
Leclerc and Sainz followed in fourth and fifth respectively, despite some concerns from the Monegasque in the closing stages that his tyres would not be able to make it to the end, with George Russell leading Mercedes’ charge en route to sixth.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/verstappen-charges-to-victory-over-norris-and-perez-in-action-packed-chinese.3Uz5CwNh5tEQt62umIGhob
Daniel Ricciardo says Lance Stroll’s refusal to take blame for their collision in Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix is “making my blood boil”.
As the field got ready to restart the race on Lap 27, a lock-up from Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso into the hairpin caused a concertina effect for cars having to brake behind him.
Several places behind the Spaniard, his team-mate Stroll crashed into the back of RB’s Ricciardo, lifting the Australian’s car up and causing damage that would end up terminal for both cars.
“Maybe in an hour, when he sees it, he might take some accountability. But if he doesn’t, I can’t help him, nor can anyone here,” Ricciardo said.
“It’s so frustrating. Obviously, racing incidents happen, but behind a safety car, that should never happen.
“What made my blood boil is I watched his onboard, to just see it from his perspective. And as soon as we start braking, you can see his helmet turn right and he’s looking at the apex of Turn 14, he’s not even watching me. And then when he looks back, he’s in the back of me.
“I don’t know what he’s doing, where his head is, but all he has to do is worry about me in that situation, and he clearly wasn’t. Let’s see what he says in the media, but if he comes after me, then I’ll say more…”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ricciardo-stroll-making-my-blood-boil-after-china-f1-contact/10601589/
Lando Norris revealed he bet with his McLaren race engineer that he’d finish 35 seconds behind the Ferraris in Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix.
Norris finished second in Shanghai after benefitting from a safety car period to make his only pitstop and come out ahead of Sergio Perez, but then managed to keep his hard tyres alive to comfortably control the gap with the Mexican.
The result came as a surprise for McLaren at one of its intrinsically worst circuits, for while it could keep up appearances with strong qualifying performances, it struggled with tyre degradation in Saturday morning’s sprint race.
Norris started the sprint on pole, but after slipping up at the start he fell back to sixth, ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri and behind both Ferraris.
Those struggles made him bet with race engineer Will Joseph that he would fall back as far as 35 seconds behind Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. Instead he finished 10 and 20 seconds ahead, respectively.
“I made a bet to how far behind the Ferraris we would finish today and I thought 35 seconds and I was very wrong by that,” Norris laughed after trailing winner Max Verstappen by 13 seconds for his 15th career podium.
“I’m happy to be wrong with myself and my own bets. I’m happy for the whole team, they deserved it.
“Today just worked out, I don’t know why. I really wasn’t expecting it to be the kind of race we had today.
“But I got comfortable, could manage the tyres a lot, which was a much easier task than what I had yesterday. And I could just push, the car felt great and felt comfortable.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/norris-reveals-bet-about-finishing-35-seconds-behind-ferrari-in-f1-china-gp/10601601/
Charles Leclerc was left bemused by Ferrari’s poor pace on the hard tyres in the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix as he failed to join the podium fight.
After losing a place to George Russell at the start while fighting Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz, Leclerc made early progress using a one-stop strategy to move up to fourth place.
But having been predicted to be the team closest to Red Bull on race pace, both Ferraris were unable to make any further gains, as Leclerc finished off the podium – 4.5s off Sergio Perez in third and nearly 10s off McLaren’s Lando Norris in second.
Leclerc didn’t understand Ferrari’s pace drop on the hards, having switched his mediums for this compound after 21 laps, which left him unable to challenge the rostrum finishers.
“I don’t think we found it [the pace] as a team, especially on the hard tyres, which is a bit strange because the strength of this car since the beginning of the year is it’s very solid in all conditions with all tyres,” Leclerc said.
“Today is a bit an outlier because as soon as we put on the hards, we were half a second off. So that is very strange. We will look into it and try to understand what went wrong on that run.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/leclerc-strange-ferrari-struggled-hard-tyres-f1-chinese-gp/10601635/
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton says he “never had so much understeer in my life” as at the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix.
Following a promising second place in Saturday morning’s sprint, Hamilton faced a recovery race from 18th on the grid.
But the seven-time world champion initially failed to make much progress on his soft tyres, rising to 15th before moving on to the medium compound.
He said his car had so much understeer during the first half of the race that he thought something was broken.
“I thought maybe at the beginning I tapped someone because I have never had so much understeer in my life, so I was turning in at slow speed and waiting, waiting, waiting,” Hamilton explained.
“So, I thought I had damaged something like some of the others because there was debris going everywhere at one point but it was just the set-up that I chose.
“With better decisions on set-up, maybe we would be around where George [Russell, who finished sixth] is but we just have to keep fighting.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hamilton-never-had-so-much-understeer-in-f1-china-gp/10601650/