Hello, welcome to a wrap-up of the Chinese Grand Prix, where Kimi Antonelli took his maiden Grand Prix win as Mercedes dominated the weekend. A race which proved to have plenty of headlines.
With twenty races to go, as well as five sprints, there’s still a lot to play for. Lewis Hamilton is long overdue following a tense and dramatic fight with Charles Leclerc to a Grand Prix podium.
After two races, it feels like a lot has been learned, and there is still a lot to be learned… we will use the pause in April to reflect on that in more detail
General News
Next month’s Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix have been cancelled due to the US–Israel–Iran war, reducing the calendar to twenty-two races, pending how the conflict in the region develops. The second double header was due to begin the weekend after Easter.
Iran has been engaged in conflict with the United States and Israel since February, when the two nations launched attacks targeting its leaders. Iran retaliated with missile strikes on US military bases across the Middle East region, and there is no sign of the conflict slowing down.
Both countries have been hit in retaliation by Iran and its proxies. It’s understood they will not be replaced by another race or postponed, as during the Covid pandemic, to avoid a repeat of 2011 during the Arab Spring, when Bahrain was postponed, then reinstated and then cancelled. Safety is the paramount concern of F1, the FIA, and the situation in the Middle East has not improved in recent days.
With no races scheduled in April, there will be a five-week gap in the schedule between the Japanese Grand Prix, the season’s third round, on March 27-29, and the Miami Grand Prix on May 1-3. Followed by a three-week gap in May before the Canadian Grand Prix.
F1 president and chief executive officer Stefano Domenicali said: “While this was a difficult decision to take, it is unfortunately the right one at this stage considering the current situation in the Middle East.”
“I want to take this opportunity to thank the FIA as well as our incredible promoters for their support and total understanding, as they were looking forward to hosting us with their usual energy and passion. We cannot wait to be back with them as soon as the circumstances allow us to do so.”
Sheikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa, chief executive of the Bahrain International Circuit, said: “We fully support the decision by Formula 1, and we are grateful to them and to the FIA for their support and enduring partnership. We look forward to welcoming fans from all around the world back to Bahrain when F1 returns.”
Cancellations of the race weekends mean the sport will take a commercial hit of well over £100m as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia pay two of the largest hosting fees on the circuit.
The cancellation was inevitable since the beginning of the war between the US/Israel, and Iran. The conflict caused havoc in the days before Melbourne, with drivers, teams and fans struggling to get to the race, with transit hubs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha closed.
From the start of the war, it was clear that the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian events were under serious threat unless the conflict could be quickly resolved. It would make F1 a target for Iran and its proxies, including Houthi rebels who launched an attack on Jeddah during the 2022 race.
The decision not to replace them was due to the difficulty of organising a race at such short notice, including selling tickets, the minimal chance of securing a significant hosting fee. Also to give the teams, media a break after just a seven-week break between Abu Dhabi last year and testing. Unlike COVID or the summer, there will not be a mandatory two-week shutdown allowing teams development time.
Weekend Recap
Practice saw George Russell fastest with a 32.741, which put him tenth faster than Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli in the weekend’s only practice session. Like in Melbourne, the silver arrows looked to hold a clear advantage; Lando Norris was four tenths behind Antonelli and half a second off. Norris put himself a tenth and three-quarters faster than his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, with the two Ferraris a tenth further behind.
Sprint Qualifying saw another Mercedes one-two, with Russell increasing his advantage by a tenth over Antonelli, despite not improving on his final run. Norris six tenths down in third, last year’s pole sitter Lewis Hamilton was a further two hundredths behind. Piastri split the two Ferraris; he was six hundredths behind Hamilton as he went a quarter of a second faster than Leclerc.
Sprint saw Russell take victory ahead of Leclerc by just over half a second, with Hamilton a second further behind. Early on, Hamilton and Russell traded places before the Mercedes driver pulled away, and in the closing stages after a safety car, the field closed up. Norris was fourth ahead of Antonelli on the road, but the Italian dropped to eighth following a 10-second penalty for causing a collision with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar on the opening lap.
GP Qualifying, saw Antonelli beat Russell by two tenths to take his maiden Grand Prix pole. The Italian became the youngest pole sitter for a Grand Prix after his teammate suffered an issue during Q3, leaving him scrambling just to get the lap in. Hamilton continued his strong weekend as he went a hundredth faster than Charles Leclerc.
Antonelli took his maiden grand Prix victory as he finished five and a half seconds ahead of his Mercedes teammate Russell. He had briefly lost the lead to Hamilton in the open corners, but fended off the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, and then proved untouchable barring a minor lock-up at Turn Fourteen with three laps to go.
Throughout their battle for third, the two Ferraris were close as they nearly came to blows several times, but eventually Hamilton pulled slightly ahead to finish just over three and a half seconds ahead of Leclerc to take his first Grand Prix podium for Ferrari.
The world champions McLaren had a disastrous Sunday; it was over before the race began, with both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri failing to start due to power unit-related issues, which are believed to be unrelated. Also, not starting Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto with a hydraulics issue and Alex Albon after a suspension change
McLaren
Ahead of the weekend, Lando Norris says McLaren has to “figure out for ourselves” how to optimise its Mercedes power unit, following concerns in Australia from its customer teams. During last weekend’s race, team principal Andrea Stella made it clear the team still had a lot to learn about harvesting and deployment.
However, Norris doesn’t want to put any blame on Mercedes’ High Performance Powertrains and the Brixworth engineers who are embedded in McLaren. He conceded that he didn’t know what a PU supplier is obliged by the FIA to tell its customer teams.
When asked by Crash.net if McLaren would try to work even more closely with them. He said, “We always do that. We’ve worked very closely [with HPP] and they’ve helped us win the last couple of world championships together. “It’s certainly not like that’s not the case already.”
“It’s just early on in the season, there are a lot of things to try to figure out and understand, and it’s just that it’s not told. Certain things don’t need to be told, because you always try to create your own advantages. But at the same time, there are certain things we’re having to figure out for ourselves.”
Norris added he didn’t know what the rules were and what has and hadn’t been said, but says they would continue to work closely with Mercedes. He added that they hadn’t figured out how to maximise it. He did acknowledge that Mercedes benefited from having the latest spec PU in testing, when its customers didn’t, so McLaren was “always going to start on the back foot”.
After sprint qualifying, where he qualified third six tenths off Russell, Norris was hoping at the start to jump the Mercedes. He believed that third was a decent result as he didn’t expect to beat the Ferrari’s with him two hundredths faster than Hamilton with Piastri four thousandths further behind.
However, warned he wasn’t expecting them to get a bad start.
The world champion said, “I think they know what they did wrong last weekend in Melbourne and they’ll probably be fine. But you never know, it’s a good opportunity. The easiest place to overtake is off the line so we’ll see what we can do.”
Adding “I’m actually pretty happy to beat both the Ferraris today because they seemed pretty good the whole day. Good position for tomorrow. Certainly, things have been better this weekend, just because the track’s a lot more simple from that side of things, from a power unit side of things.”
Following GP qualifying, Piastri believes that McLaren is “about where we belong” after taking fifth and sixth, with Norris suggesting that the team are “a step behind” their rivals. In the sprint, Piastri was fourth with Norris sixth, with around two and a half seconds off.
Asked if his fifth place was the most, he could get out of the afternoon, the Australian answered: “I think so. The last lap I did was not the greatest, so I think there was potentially a bit more in it, but just very difficult to get everything out of the car today. I’m reasonably happy with it – it’s about where we kind of belong. I felt like in Q3 we maybe got a little bit closer, but we’ve still got some work to do.”
In terms of the thinking for Sunday’s Grand Prix, off the back of an eventful start in Saturday’s Sprint, Piastri said: “Try and get a good start if I can – that’s probably the first thing, and then see what the tyres do. I think the tyres were a pretty big factor in the Sprint, but I think just car pace is going to be very important. We’ll see what our pace is like, and if we’ve got enough grip then maybe we can mix it with the guys at the front, but we’ll wait and see.”
Norris echoed Piastri’s sentiments, with the Briton admitting that there may potentially have been more in his lap. Norris said, “Both runs [in Q3] were pretty similar, I think. I made a big mistake on my first lap in the final corner, which cost me maybe a tenth, and maybe a tenth is almost a position, but it’s very close to the Ferraris.”
“It’s tough because you think, could we have got another tenth and a half out of it or something? I think that was in it today, so [I] just didn’t quite hook it up, but otherwise I think we’re probably where we deserve to be.”
The race never started for both McLarens after both Piastri and Norris suffered power unit issues, which were separate problems. For Piastri, he hasn’t started a Grand Prix since Abu Dhabi three months ago, after crashing on his way to the grid seven days ago.
He confirmed he had a different issue to Norris, he said, “It was an electrical problem on the power unit, different to Lando’s. Just very unfortunate to both have issues, but we don’t fully know any more than that at this point so, yeah, obviously disappointing.”
In terms of how the team can move forwards from the double DNS, Piastri continued: “I think try and learn what we can by watching the race, then after that just trying to do as much work as we can before Japan.”
Norris said he was not sure what happened, he added, “That’s basically it, that’s all I know for now – I think they’re still trying to investigate what is actually happening or what’s going on and why it’s not working as it should. Of course frustrating to come such a long way, put in a lot of effort – not just me but the whole team – and not even start a race, so [it’s] disappointing.”
Mercedes
Following the team’s one-two in Melbourne last weekend, CEO and team principal Toto Wolff has declared the team “are back”, but have a fight with Ferrari. Having been touted as favourites throughout the pre-season after a major regulation change, Mercedes backed up that status as George Russell led home Kimi Antonelli.
However, the win wasn’t as dominant as their win in 2014, following the last major power unit changes, when they began a run of seven drivers and eight constructors championships. Wolff told Sky Sports in the week, “Most importantly, there’s so much contentment that I feel in the team at the moment. We’ve had such a winning streak with these eight championships and then very difficult years.”
“We still won races and finished second in the championship, but a solid one-two where you feel there is a season ahead, that means you can fight for a world championship, that wasn’t for a long time. Therefore, you’re probably more grateful when you bounce back like this, having known the difficult years, that you’re just continuing, and that’s why I’m very happy for everyone.”
Many going into this season expected Mercedes to be the team to beat, and they locked out the front row, but until Ferrari’s strategy error early on played out later in the race, gave them control with the belief that on a similar strategy, they could have been challenged more.
Despite having fresher tyres, Leclerc and Hamilton were unable to make inroads in the second half of the race and finished third and fourth respectively
Wolff said: “When it comes to Ferrari, before the race, people were saying, ‘well, you’re going to disappear in the distance, we’re looking at your long runs’. And that wasn’t the case. We knew that they were strong on the starts and that’s what happened. It was an out-and-out battle between Charles and George at the beginning.
Russell has accused Ferrari of blocking the FIA from making changes to the starting procedure, calling it “selfish” and “a little bit silly” for doing so. Five days ago, the Mercedes driver took victory in Melbourne ahead of teammate Kimi Antonelli, but both had to recover from losing places at the start.
A factor in their slow getaways was that both, along with several other drivers, were left with low levels of battery after the formation lap, having been caught out by a rule that Russell says disadvantages those who have qualified on the front half of the grid. The Englishman and GPDA director claims the governing body wants to change the rule, but is unwilling to provide the ‘super majority’ required to push through the alteration.
Russell told Sky Sports, “Unfortunately, sometimes when you’re trying to make changes for the good of the sport, if a team has a competitive edge – like Ferrari at the moment with the race starts – they wouldn’t wish to see anything changing.”
“I think half the grid got caught out by a quirk in the rules for the race start in Melbourne. We now know that, but because there was some resistance from some teams to change, we’re just going to have to work around. Russell accused Ferrari of being “selfish” and “a bit silly”.
Adding, “The FIA was looking to potentially adjust that (the start procedure), but as you can imagine, some teams who were making good starts didn’t want it, which I think is just a little bit silly. I’m not overly concerned, but it’s definitely a challenge.”
Antonelli thanked Mercedes saying “they helped me to achieve this dream” after taking his maiden Grand Prix win, finishing five and a half seconds ahead of Russell, making him the second youngest race winner in his 26th Grand Prix. I think that was a solid race win after he fended off the fast starting Ferrari’s and then controlled that race as well as the advantage on pace.
But let’s remember that Russell was unable to challenge him after the pit stop he lost time. I think he needed this win after a difficult debut season as he held his own against Russell and Lewis Hamilton in that race, the start where he lost position could have unsettled him, and he just kept his head down, probably knowing Mercedes had the pace.
Red Bull
Following Isack Hadjar’s debut last weekend in Melbourne, where he qualified third but nearly eight tenths of pole, team principal Laurent Mekies was full of praise as he provided a high point on a tricky first weekend of the season for the team. Although he retired early on, Mekies was enthusiastic about Hadjar’s overall performance, especially given the challenges thrown up by the all-new 2026 cars and power units.
He told F1.com, “He had a fantastic weekend. Coming here, [he had] fairly limited mileage in testing, with a bit of lack of luck there. And he came here from the very first lap in FP1 on Friday at the right pace. We were able to split the testing programme between the cars and get double the amount of information.”
“He went to Qualifying with everything that [is entailed for] a first time Qualifying with these rules. Absolutely nailed it. Put the car in P3, which is probably as high as it could have been on Saturday.”
Reflecting on last weekend, Mekies admitted they were not on the pace of Mercedes or Ferrari, but believes they are in a fight with McLaren. Red Bull knows it going to take time to be fighting with the top teams, but they think they have done a good job to be in that position at the first race.
He added, “You have seen how things are imperfect during the race weekend. Many people complained yesterday in Qualifying that you could not optimise your lap because it’s effectively difficult session to session, run to run, to nail everything out of these rules.”
Mekies apologised to Max Verstappen after he described the Teams sprint qualifying on Friday a “disaster.” The Dutchman could only manage eighth and Hadjar tenth after both just made it through to SQ 3, but was 1.734 seconds off pole at a circuit which tests all-around ability.
He said on “Sorry, Max. Tough one, a lot to learn. The weekend is still long, we need to learn from [today]. Let’s try again.”
Verstappen later told Sky Sports, “The whole day has been a disaster pace-wise. No grip. That’s the biggest problem – no grip, no balance. Just losing massive amounts of time in the corners. Then, because of that, you start triggering other little problems but the big problem for us is the cornering is completely out.”
Throughout sprint qualifying, we heard Verstappen, as before, complain about downshifts, but that appeared to be the tip of his problems, as he was told there wasn’t anything he could have done, suggesting it’s a more fundamental problem.
While teammate Hadjar suffered a battery deployment issue on his only SQ3 lap, which limited his straight line speed on the long back straight as he qualified in tenth at 2.203s off the pace – a gap he was slightly surprised by.
he said, “I was happy with my lap. It was good, but in the end it doesn’t change our weekend. I’m just happy to be not too far from Max. We need a bit more of everything – more grip, a bit more power. We are just very far off Mercedes, a lot more than last weekend. I was expecting Ferrari and McLaren to be ahead but not the gap overall to increase.”
Red Bull’s Friday pace suggested that have dropped off the front pack of Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren. However, Mercedes has also increased their gap over the rest of the field as Russell was six tenths ahead of third-placed Lando Norris in Sprint Qualifying – the first of the non-Mercedes drivers.
Things didn’t get better for the Dutchman on Saturday after a difficult qualifying where he was eighth, the four-time champion said driving his Red Bull felt “awful” and that “every lap is survival”. In the s[print he dropped out the points after losing a place following a bad start.
While in GP Qualifying, he was over a second off the pace of Antonelli and a tenth faster than Hadjar. Red Bull’s second underwhelming qualifying in as many days came despite the team making wholesale changes to their car’s set-up between sessions.
speaking to Sky Sports after his worst Shanghai qualifying since 2017, Verstappen admitted, “It was the same. We turned it upside down and it was exactly the same, so I’m expecting exactly the same [in the race]. Where we are probably fighting a bit with Pierre [Gasly, who qualified seventh]. But, that’s it. Not more in it.”
Describing the issues he was having on the track, Verstappen said: “Incredibly tough to drive. There’s no balance. I cannot lean on the car. Every lap is a fight. It’s just very difficult. Every time I did another lap on a tyre set, it felt awful. I honestly think it will be quite tough tomorrow. In the past, sometimes we throw it [the car] upside down and it worked. Now, nothing works. It’s just not nice. I cannot push. Every lap is survival for me.”
I think these points lead to more fundamental issues with the car and we know Verstappen has this very unique way he likes to set up and drive a car. The four-time champion has been vocal in not liking this generation of cars, as well as the handling of the car.
Ferrari
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says the team still has “tonnes of things to improve” in order to build on their competitive start to F1’s new era and that he was “very pleased” with Lewis Hamilton’s start to his second season at the team.
Last weekend, the team were the closest to favourites Mercedes in Melbourne, with Charles Leclerc third and Hamilton fourth respectively. Although they challenged Mercedes in the race, they were ultimately unable to fight for victory, with Leclerc eventually finishing fifteen and a half seconds behind George Russell.
Vasseur said he was satisfied with the team’s step forward in the Melbourne race after difficulties in qualifying, but added there was still much for them to get on top of in the early stages of F1’s new-look regulations.
The Frenchman said, “We know that we have tonnes of things to improve – on the strategy, on the engine, on the chassis, on the tyres, on everything. For the drivers to be used to deal with the car as it is today. If you have the radio of everybody, you saw that it’s quite a challenge. It’s true for us, but it’s true for the others. The result will be based on our capacity to improve quickly.”
Hamilton qualified fourth for the sprint, but last year’s pole sitter was almost six and a half tenths off Russell, believing that Ferrari is losing all their time to Mercedes on the straights. He said, “We have a lot of work to do. We really have to push so hard back in Maranello to improve on power.”
“It was something that I think we were conscious of last year, that we thought that Mercedes started earlier than us or the rest – which they did last time [in 2014] as well. So they gave done a fantastic job and we’ve got to push to be able to close that gap.”
Leclerc could only manage sixth in sprint qualifying and was a full second off the pace set by Russell, in a session where he grew increasingly frustrated. He was out-qualified by Hamilton, who was four tenths quicker, which was partly caused by a deployment issue.
Leclerc was visibly annoyed when he spoke to the media after sprint qualifying, lamenting what had been “a very frustrating session.
He said, “Unfortunately when I had a good lap I lost half a second on the back straight for whatever reason on the second lap in SQ3. So we will analyse that and try to understand what has gone wrong.”
Despite the large deficit to Mercedes, Leclerc remains hopeful that Ferrari can be more competitive over a race distance. Leclerc added, “It doesn’t really change the picture from where we are. In the race, we should be relatively a bit stronger than where we are now in qualifying; however, Mercedes seems to be a step ahead in qualifying.”
Ferrari needs more power to match Mercedes, with Leclerc admitting he is perplexed by the advantage Mercedes currently boasts with its engine and deployment, especially over one lap.
he added, “For some reason, the Mercedes power unit finds a lot of lap time, We don’t quite find that amount of lap time yet in qualifying, but in the race we are closer. So I’m hopeful we can come back tomorrow.”
Hamilton qualified third for the grand prix, but after hailing Antonelli’s first GP pole said he was formulating a “different tactic” to turn his early Mercedes-challenging pace from the Shanghai Sprint into a stronger result in Sunday’s full-length race. The seven time champion was three and a half seconds off Antonelli.
Speaking in the press conference, the pole record holder, said, “I have to say a big congratulations to this big lad here, to Kimi. It’s an amazing achievement to come into… Well, he took my seat! And he hit it hard from the get-go, so it’s really great to see him progressing and he really deserves it.”
Going into the GP, both race starts by the Ferraris have been the best on the grid, and last weekend we saw Leclerc seizing an early lead before duelling with Russell in the first stint before running out of tyre life.
Hamilton added, “I made some changes to the deployment going into qualifying, which was better for us, and hopefully better for us tomorrow. Something happens when they get to qualifying; they are able to eek out more power somehow. For us, I have to figure out something different because I can’t kill the tyres like I did today. I need to go the distance tomorrow and figure out how I can keep pace, as I did in the last race [in Australia].”
After twenty-six Grand Prix starts, Hamilton finally scored his first Grand Prix podium for Ferrari describing it as ‘’one of the most enjoyable F1 races ever’ as he snared his first grand prix podium for the Scuderia.
Hamilton won China’s sprint race from pole last year, only to be disqualified for a technical infringement in the Grand Prix, but that was a rare highlight in a tough debut campaign as he struggled to gel with his scarlet machinery. These shorter more nimble cars suit his driving style.
There was a tense and exciting scrap between Hamilton and Leclerc in the race for third, which I enjoyed as we saw last year flashes of that but the seven-time champion was often let down by his qualifying. He admitted there is still work to do to be fighting at the front.
Vasseur admitted he was “a bit scared” watching Hamilton and Leclerc going wheel-to-wheel in their battle for third in the Grand Prix. The seven-time champion led the opening laps of the race, but the timing of the safety car, coupled with Mercedes’ pace advantage, I think it was always going to be difficult without more safety cars or a freak event for Ferrari to win the race.
The seven-time champion took decisive action with sixteen laps to go when he started to pull ahead and take a three and a half second advantage.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Vasseur said, “I have to be honest, sometimes you are a bit scared. But I trust them that they were in control and that something can happen. But on the other hand, it’s also very difficult as a team to freeze the positions. I think they are professional, and I really enjoyed this.”
Like teammate Hamilton, who branded the Chinese GP as one of his most enjoyable F1 races ever, Leclerc thoroughly relished the wheel-to-wheel action.
He said, “Honestly, these cars, for races, it’s actually quite fun. Yeah, it was just a cool race. I think it was a very fair, hard but fair battle, which was nice. And then, there’s also a lot of tactics from inside the cockpit, that is really cool.
“There was obviously this battle for who will get the overtake in the last corner, and we both braked very early, and the way you deploy and manage the energy. So, it was a fun race.”
Aston Martin
Fernando Alonso says it would d be optimistic to think Aston Martin can finish races despite a better-than-hoped-for Australian Grand Prix. Ahead of last weekend race team principal Adrian Newey made a stunning revelation last Thursday when he said Alonso and Lance Stroll would be unable to complete more than half of the season-opener due to the risk of suffering permanent nerve damage from car vibrations.
Stroll, however completed forty-three laps in Melbourne while Alonso retired after just twenty-one laps. A shortage of parts is the primary reason for Aston Martin’s limited running, although vibrations also remain an issue.
Alonso told Sky Sports, “We need to take the positives and move forwards. Everyone is determined to change the situation and working really hard. I think probably from the situation we had in Bahrain, or Thursday in Australia, we are in a better position now.”
“We tested a few things, discovered the window and chassis more than in Bahrain and we did the formation lap, the start and pit stops with both cars. All these things are normal for everyone, but we never did it in Bahrain. It was good data and we will be more prepared for China, for sure.”
Newey revealed that only around 30 per cent of the original Honda team are currently working with Aston Martin, which he only became aware of in November last year.
Honda’s trackside general manager, Shintaro Orihara, said, “We have found some progress on the vibration situation, and then still we keep working hard to reduce vibration.”
“Still, reliability is our challenging point to improve. So still we are working hard in dialogue with Aston Martin, and then we found something, another countermeasure, so maybe we can try something. Also, we have accumulated mileage in the race, so we learned something from the race event for the driveability and also energy management. So we implement that learning into our simulation system.”
To me, this appears to be a fundamental issue which could take all year to fix but Melbourne, yes, was difficult but better than expected. They, I think, already are looking at exceeding the power unit allocation, though they are coy about how many batteries they might need.
Haas
Ollie Bearman delivered an impressive race, finishing fifth fifty-eight seconds off the winner after surviving a near race-ending incident with Isack Hadjar on the opening lap. After scoring points in the sprint, he converted tenth into a fifth-place finish behind both Mercedes and Ferrari.
The opening lap incident I was impressed with how quickly he reacted as Hadjar spun right in front of him at Turn Thirteen, he darted very quickly to the run-off area and avoided contact. While he did drop back Bearman was then a big winner from the safety car.
Asked about his quick reactions on Lap 1 when he arrived in the media pen, Bearman said: “Yeah! That was very unfortunate, I must say. Isack was on the soft [tyre] and managed to get up my inside at Turn 13, and then lost the car right in front of me. I was kind of [like a] deer in the headlights – I had no idea what to do.”
“I kind of had the car sliding in front of me, I didn’t know if he was going to release the brake. In that moment I really had a split second, you know, even less, to react. I went left, I probably should have gone right, but you’re in survival mode there trying not to crash the car, and we didn’t crash the car, which was great.
This was the kind thing I was talking about last season when I felt Bearman’s results weren’t matching his performances.
With Bearman finishing seventh in Australia, eighth in the China Sprint and fifth in the Chinese Grand Prix, he added of his start to the season: “We couldn’t have asked for more, and I just want to keep pushing like this now.”
Cadillac
Sergio Perez has taken responsibility for the collision with teammate Valtteri Bottas at the start of the Grand Prix. The two were battling for fourteenth through the opening sequence of corners on the opening race.
Perez stayed on the inside of Bottas’ car into the corner, but Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin lay on the outside; the Mexican found himself on the kerb, hit the Finn’s sidepod with his front-right wheel and spun, damaging his team-mate’s car in the process.
Perez only lost a few seconds, and the early safety car allowed him to catch up anyway. Bottas overtook Alonso on lap six, with the Mexican doing likewise on lap 15, so Cadillac led the two-time world champion retired from the race due to crippling vibrations that were making him ‘lose all feeling’ in his hands and feet.
Bottas finishing eighteenth seconds ahead of Perez, with the Haas of Esteban Ocon between them. Asked about the intra-team incident, Perez owned up to a “misjudgement” on his part.
He admitted, “That was all on me. I saw the gap, I went for it. But obviously, looking at it, Valtteri had nowhere to go. Unfortunately, it ended up costing me the race because I spun, I lost a lot of time. Luckily, I managed to come back to the field.”
During the second stint, when battling with Bottas, Perez said he was using overtake mode and lost the battery, costing him fifteen to twenty seconds. But I think Cadillac has performed well in getting both cars to the finish in there second race.
Results Summary
Sprint Pole Position |
George Russell
Mercedes 01:31.520 |
|||||
Sprint Winner |
George Russell
Mercedes 33:36.998 |
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Pole Position |
Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli
Mercedes 01:32.0640 |
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Podium |
||||||
Po |
Name |
Nat |
Team |
Time |
Points |
|
| 1 | Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli | ITA | Mercedes | 01:33:15.507 | 25 | |
| 2 | George Russell | GBR | Mercedes | +00:05.515 | 18 | |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | GBR | Ferrari | +00:25.267 | 15 | |
| Fastest
Lap |
Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli | ITA | Mercedes | 01:26.275 | ||
Championship Standings
Drivers’ Championship |
Constructors Championship |
|||
Po |
Name |
Points |
Constructor |
Points |
| 1 | George Russell | 51 | Mercedes | 98 |
| 2 | Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli | 47 | Ferrari | 67 |
| 3 | Charles Leclerc | 34 | McLaren – Mercedes | 18 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | 33 | Haas – Ferrari | 17 |
| 5 | Oliver Bearman | 17 | Red Bull – Ford RBPT | 12 |
