Oscar Piastri beat his McLaren teammate Lando Norris with a dominant nine-second win at the Chinese Grand Prix, the Australian drove a calm and controlled race at the front to take the teams second win of the season. Piastri never really looked under any pressure only losing his lead to Norris during the pit stop, as he drove a solid race.
Norris, meanwhile, was unable to challenge his teammate in the closing stages and started to drop back after a brake issue, but managed to hang onto second despite George Russell trying to take advantage of the issues for the McLaren. The Englishman until the brake issue had been three seconds behind his teammate, before being instructed to bring the car home without risk.
However, the Mercedes driver was just over a second off at the chequered flag. A half-century of one-two finishes in the history of McLaren showed it is again the team to beat at present. Norris had briefly lost second during the pit stop, but given the pace advantage and despite Russell’s best efforts could not keep the McLaren behind.
At the start, Piastri held off a challenge from Russell off the line by forcing the Briton to the inside, and the Mercedes’ compromised line allowed Norris to pass Russell before the end of the long Turn One, Two, Three complex. From then on, baring the pit stop phase when Norris stopped behind Russell, McLaren spent most of the race running one-two.
Russell hung on to Norris for ten laps or so thanks to the undercut, before the McLaren edged further ahead as McLaren asked Piastri to speed up a little to allow Norris to have some breathing space from the Mercedes if a second stop was required. The issue for Norris allowed Russell to close to just over a second at the chequered flag.
Piastri said, “It’s been an incredible weekend from start to finish, the car has been pretty mega the whole time. I think today was a bit of a surprise with how the tyres behaved but I’m super proud and what I feel like I deserve from last week.”
Norris added, “There were a few fun moments, at the start I was hoping for exactly that. Turn One went to plan but then George [Russell] got me on the pit stops. I was a little bit nervous but our pace was a lot better in the second stint. Tough race, just for the management and I don’t think many people expected a one-stop today so that was good.”
Russell said, “It’s a great result to finish in P3, especially in front of all these fans here, it has been amazing support for everybody this year. It was a great race and I’m really pleased with P3, we knew McLaren were a smidge quicker than us, a few crucial points but well done to those two [Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris].”
Norris has increased his title lead over Max Verstappen to eight points, but the margins are tight between the Dutchman in second. McLaren has a twenty-four-point lead in the constructors from Mercedes, while Red Bull leads Ferrari by one point with twenty-two Grands Prix and five sprints remaining.
Verstappen finished fourth, the Red Bull driver finishing five and a half seconds behind Russell and ahead of both Ferrari’s with Charles Leclerc six seconds behind Verstappen and ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton by just over two seconds. Leclerc drove a great race and managed to hang on despite early damage to the front wing.
The two Ferraris had made contact as the field pincered into the first corner on the opening lap, as Hamilton tried to correct a snap of oversteer, he hit Leclerc’s left-front endplate but it did not seem to compromise him and he tracked Hamilton through the first stint, following in his wheel tracks up to the first pit stops.
Leclerc was side by side with Verstappen and said he “did not expect” Hamilton to move across in front of him but said it was not his teammate’s fault. The Monegasque driver suffered front wing damage, with Ferrari saying he lost “20 to 30 points” of downforce which is around two to three tenths per lap.
The Englishman was the only front-running driver to complete a two-stop strategy, a series of fastest laps not quite enough to make up for the time he had lost swapping tyres again. However, as Verstappen found pace in the second half of the race allowing him to close in on the Ferrari, then passing him with four laps to go before opening a five-second gap over the Monacan. Leclerc would have lost roughly a second or two because of the damage to his front wing, on the opening lap.
Leclerc finished two seconds ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time champion was the only one of the front runners to do a one-stop but that dropped him out of contention to fight. The Sprint pole sitter and winner was a comfortable sixth dropping six and a half seconds behind Leclerc and ahead of Esteban Ocon by twenty-four seconds.
However, Leclerc and Hamilton and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly were disqualified from the race for being underweight. Leclerc was fifth, Hamilton sixth and Gasly eleventh. It was deemed they had warn the plank below the minimum depth
Haas had a really strong race with Ocon seventh and Ollie Bearman tenth, they had shown strong pace in the race with Bearman pulling off some brilliant overtakes, coupled with the alternative hard-medium strategy, he worked his way through the field from seventeenth to finish two and a half seconds behind Alex Albon.
While the second Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli was eighth behind Ocon by three seconds and ahead of the Williams by two seconds. Bearman in the closing stages was five seconds ahead of Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz. Isack Hadjar finished fourteenth almost two and a half seconds behind Sainz and ahead of Liam Lawson.
Jack Doohan was sixteenth the Alpine driver was given a five-second penalty for forcing Hajar wide, though it didn’t change his position. Both Racing Bulls were on course for points but lost out on strategy and couldn’t regain positions following the decision to two-stop, while Yuki Tsunoda dropped to last after a third stop due to front wing damage.
Gabriel Bortoletto was leading the lapped cars; he was nine seconds ahead of his Sauber teammate Nico Hulkenberg with Tsunoda in last. Fernando Alonso was the only retirement because of a brake issue on lap four.
Related
- Chinese GP – Qualifying Result
- CHINESE GP – Oscar Piastri beats George Russell to Grand Prix pole by eight hundredths in fluctuating conditions
- Chinese GP – Sprint Result
- CHINESE GP – Lewis Hamilton takes debut win for Ferrari beating Oscar Piastri by six seconds in the sprint
- Chinese GP – Sprint Qualifying Result
- CHINESE GP – Lewis Hamilton beats Max Verstappen by two hundredths to take first Ferrari pole in sprint qualifying
- CHINESE GP – Lando Norris fastest by half a second from Charles Leclerc in practice
- Welcome to the Chinese Grand Prix
- PRIXVIEW – Chinese Grand Prix
