CHINESE GP – Lando Norris beats Lewis Hamilton by over a second to take sprint pole
Lando Norris has beaten Lewis Hamilton by just over a second to take back-to-back sprint poles for the sprint at the Chinese Grand Prix. Hamilton had appeared to have taken pole after the McLaren driver had his time deleted briefly for track limits at the final corner.
However, following a review by stewards Norris’s fastest time was reinstated by the stewards. The McLaren driver had been investigated and briefly lost pole for running wide at the end of his previous lap and gaining an advantage.
That decision gave Norris a second successive F1 Sprint pole, having also started from the front in Brazil in the final Sprint weekend of last season. He will look to repeat what his teammate Oscar Piastri did in Qatar last year and convert pole into a first win in any format in F1.
Both drivers are good in mix conditions and the slight delay earlier in sprint qualifying caused by a grass fire saw the rain close in towards SQ3. Hamilton put his Mercedes seven-tenths faster than Fernando Alonso, as Max Verstappen looked to struggle in the wet conditions.
Mercedes looked to be in trouble during practice as Hamilton and George Russell struggled to unlock performance, but you can never count out the seven-time champion in the wet.
Norris said, “I saw on the board that I wasn’t at the top but I saw when I went over the line on the TV that I was. So I got a little bit nervous but I didn’t do anything wrong, so it should be fine.”
Hamilton added, “Tricky conditions. Not a lot of grip as you saw for everyone. But so happy. As soon as I saw the rain coming, I was getting excited because in the dry conditions we’re not quick enough, so when the rain came I thought I would have a better opportunity and that’s when it all came alive.”
Alonso looked faster he first went ahead of Sergio Perez when the rain started to fall then Verstappen could only go just under a tenth behind on his final run in SQ3. But the Aston Martin driver looked to struggle to control the car early on in the wet before he got a clean lap together on his final attempt to go a tenth ahead of the two Red Bull’s.
Carlos Sainz split the two Red Bull’s the Spaniard going nearly a tenth behind Verstappen as he went over a tenth and a half faster than Perez. Red Bull looked to be the favourites going into the weekend, but conditions weren’t ideal as the race returns following a five-year hiatus due to Covid.
However, Verstappen would have been expected to be on pole – the Red Bull is the fastest car, and he is usually so impressive in the wet. But he made errors on his first two laps, which led to his times being deleted, and he had to string one together just as the session was ending.
Charles Leclerc was seventh nearly two-tenths behind Perez, but the Ferrari driver was another to be caught out crashing in the best of the conditions in SQ3 and that lead to a pit stop. Adding to the difficulties caused by the rain was the resurfaced track similar to Istanbul in 2020.
There has been plenty of intrigue as F1 returned to Shanghai for the first time in five years, FP1 and sprint qualifying only adds to it. During the opening session understanding the order was more difficult as teams ran a variety of strategies.
Leclerc put his Ferrari ahead of Piastri by over four tenths and both Sauber’s with Valtteri Bottas nearly half a second faster than teammate Guanyu Zhou. Zhou getting through to SQ3 sent his home fans wild as he knocked out George Russell at the end of SQ2.
The treacherous nature of the conditions late in SQ2 and SQ3 quickly became clear as Verstappen, so secure in the wet on his way to winning a third successive drivers’ title last season, ran off track on his first attempt at a flying lap.
Adding to the spin for Leclerc and Russell’s poor timing, was Hamilton struggling to find his pace thanks to differing tyre pressures on his first set of inters. Perez was the first to find his groove as the Mexican went two seconds clear with three minutes remaining but was then narrowly displaced by Alonso.
At the end of SQ2 Hamilton had gone second behind Norris, before both the McLaren drivers laps were deleted for track limits.
Zhou was six-tenths faster than the Mercedes, after Russell had been eleventh fastest after the first runs in SQ2. That is when the rain came followed by an oversteer in the first sector causing him to lose six tenths over the course of the lap and out of qualifying.
Russell was almost a tenth and a half faster than both Haas’s, with Kevin Magnussen was five thousandths faster than his teammate Nico Hulkenberg. It appeared to be a difficult qualifying for Russell, he only just made it out of SQ1 after finding three tenths to knock out Pierre Gasly.
Daniel Ricciardo was a second behind and ahead of practice topper Lance Stroll by over a tenth, but both drivers only did a single run in SQ1. Gasly who had been knocked out by Russell, went nine hundredths ahead of his Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon.
Alex Albon was eighteenth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda who spilt the Williams after going three hundredths faster than Logan Sargeant