Introduction
Max Verstappen converted pole position into victory in a 2024 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix full of incidents and overtakes, leading home McLaren’s Lando Norris and Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez to make four wins from five races this season.
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Verstappen led the vast majority of a strategic encounter at the Shanghai International Circuit that featured a Virtual Safety Car and two full Safety Car periods, the Dutchman keeping his cool at the front as the drama unfolded behind him.
Norris was one of three drivers, along with Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, to make just one pit stop, having benefitted from the VSC and Safety Car phases to jump Perez for second position, which he managed to hold to the finish.
Leclerc and Sainz followed in fourth and fifth, respectively, despite some concerns from the Monegasque in the closing stages that his tyres would be unable to make it to the end. George Russell led Mercedes’ charge en route to sixth.
Fernando Alonso had an offset strategy after pitting for softs rather than hards chosen by the drivers around him under the mid-race Safety Car. This forced him into a late stop for mediums, and then a string of overtakes to recover from 12th to seventh—McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was his final victim.
After his Q1 exit and some tyre-related struggles in the early laps, Lewis Hamilton worked his way up the order amid drama around him. He wound up ninth thanks to some intelligent overtakes, with Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg claiming the final point on offer.
Alpine pair Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly sandwiched the Williams of Alex Albon in positions 11 to 13, while Kick Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu crossed the line in 14th as he made history by becoming the first Chinese driver to compete on home soil.
A trio of sanctioned drivers followed, with Lance Stroll classifying 15th, ahead of final finishers Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant, after being given a 10-second penalty for his part in a collision with Daniel Ricciardo under the Safety Car.
Stroll ran into the back of Ricciardo just before the first Safety Car restart when the field bunched up at the tight final hairpin, and after the RB driver returned to the pits to retire with significant damage, stewards slapped the Canadian with his sanction.
Magnussen was 16th in his Haas after tipping the other RB of Yuki Tsunoda into a spin – and retirement – at the exit of the Turn 6 hairpin earlier in the race, a move that also saw the stewards add 10 seconds to his time.
Logan Sargeant finished 17th and last in the second of the Williams machines to conclude another difficult weekend. He was hit with a 10-second penalty for a Safety Car infringement involving Hulkenberg.
Alongside the two RBs, Valtteri Bottas failed to finish when his Kick Sauber developed an apparent engine issue and forced him to pull off the track, with problems removing his car leading to the first Safety Car period.
With the top-three finishers heading to the podium to celebrate, Verstappen’s latest win means he now sits 25 points – and a Grand Prix victory – clear of teammate Perez in the drivers’ standings as the F1 field gets set for another Sprint in Miami in a fortnight’s time.
Mario Isola, Motorsport Director, Pirelli:
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 an exciting 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 by 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, proving that they worked well on this unusual track in very particular conditions.
The day on the track:
Predictably, most drivers opted to start on the Medium, with four—Hamilton, Stroll, Sargeant, and Tsunoda—choosing 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 regarding pit stops and tyre usage to the extent that six drivers – Hamilton, Stroll, Alonso, Sargeant, Tsunoda and Zhou – used 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.
Sainz drove the longest stint of all (39 laps on the Hard), Magnussen went furthest (29 laps) on the Medium, and Alonso did 20 on the Soft.
What’s next?
Next up, it’s Formula 1’s first visit to North America this season, with a race on a track around Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium from 3 to 5 May. The Sprint format will operate for the second consecutive round, meaning just one free practice session and Sprint Qualifying on Friday, with the Sprint Race and Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday, followed by the usual race on Sunday. The compounds chosen for the season’s sixth round are the C2, C3 and C4, the same as here in Shanghai.
2024 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix Race Results
| Pos | No | Driver | Country | Team | Time | Points | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 1 | Max Verstappen | Netherlands | Red Bull Racing | 1:40:52.554 | 25 | 110 |
| 2. | 4 | Lando Norris | Great Britain | Mclaren Racing | +13.773s | 18 | 58 |
| 3. | 11 | Sergio Perez | Mexico | Red Bull Racing | +19.160s | 15 | 85 |
| 4. | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Monaco | Scuderia Ferrari | +23.623s | 12 | 76 |
| 5. | 55 | Carlos Sainz | Spain | Scuderia Ferrari | +33.983s | 10 | 69 |
| 6. | 63 | George Russell | Great Britain | Mercedes-AMG Petronas | +38.724s | 8 | 33 |
| 7. | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Spain | Aston Martin F1 Team | +43.414s | 7 | 31 |
| 8. | 81 | Oscar Piastri | Australia | McLaren Racing | +56.198s | 4 | 38 |
| 9. | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Great Britain | Mercedes-AMG Petronas | +57.986s | 2 | 19 |
| 10. | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Germany | Haas F1 Team | +60.476s | 1 | 4 |
| 11. | 31 | Esteban Ocon | France | Alpine F1 Team | +62.812s | 0 | 0 |
| 12. | 45 | Alexander Albon | Thailand | Williams Racing | +65.506s | 0 | 0 |
| 13. | 10 | Pierre Gasly | France | Alpine F1 Team | +69.223s | 0 | 0 |
| 14. | 24 | Zhou Guanyu | China | Kick Sauber F1 Team | +71.689s | 0 | 0 |
| 15. | 18 | Lance Stroll | Canada | Aston Martin F1 Team | +82.786s | 0 | 9 |
| 16. | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Denmark | Haas F1 Team | +87.533s | 0 | 1 |
| 17. | 2 | Logan Sargeant | USA | Williams Racing | +95.110s | 0 | 0 |
| 18. | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Australia | Visa Cash App F1 Team | DNF | 0 | 0 |
| 19. | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | Japan | Visa Cash App F1 Team | DNF | 0 | 7 |
| 20. | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Finland | Kick Sauber F1 Team | DNF | 0 | 0 |
2024 Constructor Standings
| Pos | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Red Bull Racing | 195 |
| 2. | Scuderia Ferrari | 151 |
| 3. | McLaren Racing | 96 |
| 4. | Mercedes-AMG Petronas | 52 |
| 5. | Aston Martin F1 Team | 40 |
| 6. | Visa Cash App F1 Team | 7 |
| 7. | Haas F1 Team | 5 |
| 8. | Kick Sauber F1 Team | 0 |
| 9. | Williams Racing | 0 |
| 10. | Alpine F1 Team | 0 |
Here are the team-by-team highlights:
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