|
The Chinese Grand Prix ended
with a one-two finish for McLaren, with Oscar Piastri ahead of Lando Norris,
the Australian taking the third win of his career. For the English team, it
was win number 191, it’s third in a row and the fourth at this event, the
first in 14 years, since Lewis Hamilton won in 2011. Piastri and Norris
secured McLaren’s 50th one-two finish, the second for this driver pairing
after they finished in the same order in Budapest last year.
For the
second consecutive time this season, George Russell stood on the third step
of the podium to secure Mercedes’ 300th podium finish (129 wins, 98 second
places and 73 thirds). This particular list is headed by Ferrari on 829
ahead of McLaren with 527 and Williams with 313.
THE DAY ON TRACK:
On the starting grid, 17 drivers opted for the Medium for the first stint
with only Lance Stroll and Oliver Bearman going for the Hard, while Liam
Lawson also opted for the C2, but he started from the pit lane because of a
penalty. While all the indications going into the race were for a two-stop
strategy being clearly the most plausible, the way the race went and the
tyre behaviour, especially in the case of the Hard that had not been used at
all over the previous two days, steered the majority of the field towards a
one-stop the more the cars ran on track.
Those who started on the
Medium pitted to take on the C2 in a window between laps 10 and 20, Pierre
Gasly the first to stop and Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg the last.
Meanwhile, the three drivers who started on the Hard ran a variety of stint
lengths: Lawson came in on lap 18, Bearman on 26 and Stroll stayed out until
36. Apart from these three, Gabriel Bortoleto had to pit on the opening lap
to go straight onto the Hard, before coming in for another set of C2s after
25 laps.
In the second part of the race, it became clear that the
Hard tyre was working very well, with only slight degradation. Three drivers
(Hamilton and the two Racing Bulls) nevertheless went for a second stop,
leaving the rest of the field to go all the way to the chequered flag. Of
those who started on the Hard, Stroll and Bearman did their second stint on
the Medium.
MARIO ISOLA - MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR
“One of the key points of this Grand Prix was finding out how the Hard
performed at this track. Clearly, data gathered over the first two days
here, especially from the Sprint, gave the teams indications of how to
change the car set-up in order to protect the front axle as much as
possible, as it was the one most susceptible to graining. Track evolution
meant it decreased on the Mediums compared to what was seen in the short
race, even if for some teams, the wear was still significant. For its part,
the Hard displayed only limited graining and more significantly, it
performed very consistently including over very long stints, even allowing
drivers to attack in the closing stages, as was the case with Verstappen for
example. When evaluating C2 behaviour, one should bear in mind that it is
the compound that has undergone the biggest changes of any in the 2025 range
and therefore was something of an unknown quantity for all the teams.
All things considered, it was quite an interesting weekend on a track,
or specifically on a track surface, that produced very significant
performance gains. For example, even today, the fastest race lap was 2”741
quicker than last year’s set on a very similar lap to last year, with
Hamilton on lap 41 today and Alonso on lap 45 last year. With the first
double-header now done and dusted, Formula 1 takes a short break before
tackling a triple-header on tracks that are very different to each other,
even if they all hold the promise of exciting racing, starting with the
round in Suzuka over the first weekend in April."
|
