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Max Verstappen’s
dominance was again the story in Shanghai. After winning yesterday morning’s
Sprint, the three time world champion added this afternoon’s race win to his
tally. It is his fourth victory from five races so far this season, plus the
Sprint here in China. It takes his total to 58 Grands Prix victories from
190 starts, while for Red Bull it is win number 117.
Also on the
podium, second placed Lando Norris for McLaren and Sergio Perez, third in
the other Red Bull. This was the Englishman’s 15th podium and the Mexican’s
39th. Fernando Alonso took the chequered flag in seventh place and set the
race fastest lap for the 25th time in his career, his second with Aston
Martin after the one in Zandvoort last year.
THE DAY ON
TRACK:
Predictably, the vast majority of drivers opted to start on the Medium, with
four – Hamilton, Stroll, Sargeant and Tsunoda – going for the Soft and
Magnussen choosing the Hard.
The way the race panned out and the
various strategy choices were influenced by three Safety Car periods, one
virtual and two real, for a total of around 17 minutes, just before
half-distance. This bunched up the pack and mixed things up in terms of pit
stops and tyre usage to the extent that six drivers - Hamilton, Stroll,
Alonso, Sargeant, Tsunoda and Zhou – ended up using all three compounds.
Further confirmation of this was the fact that the strategies of the drivers
who made up the top ten were very different to one another in terms of the
order in which the compounds were used, as well as in the number of pit
stops: Norris, Sainz and Leclerc stopped only once, while Verstappen, Perez,
Russell, Hamilton, Piastri and Hulkenberg stopped twice and Alonso three
times.
The longest stint of all was driven by Sainz (39 laps on the
Hard) with Magnussen going furthest (29 laps) on the Medium and Alonso doing
20 on the Soft.
MARIO ISOLA - MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR
“I take my hat off to yet another show of strength from Max Verstappen, who
won twice on this first Sprint weekend of the season. Nevertheless, it was a
very interesting race because behind the three time world champion, there
was a very close race with surprises, overtaking and excitement. In fact,
there was also great excitement among the Chinese fans who had their eyes
glued on local hero Guanyu Zhou all weekend long, and he showed his emotion
acknowledging their support after the race.
“From a purely technical
point of view, today’s race confirmed that all three compounds were suitable
for use. Obviously, the long Safety Car periods affected the way the race
played out, allowing those considering a one-stop to make it work. However,
given the level of degradation evident, it would have really been borderline
to make the one stop work without the Safety Car, as there would have been
too high a price to pay in terms of performance compared to those who would
have been on quicker, and possibly newer, tyres in the final part of the
race. In fact, this was demonstrated by Alonso, who came in for new Mediums
on lap 43 when in seventh place, and was then able to make up all five
places lost at the pit stop over the course of his final stint. Finally,
it’s worth noting that none of the three compounds suffered from graining,
further proof that they worked well on this unusual track in very particular
conditions."
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