Verstappen’s winning ways continue in Shanghai

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 15^th podium and the Mexican’s 39^th. Fernando Alonso took the chequered flag in seventh place and set the race fastest lap for the 25^th 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 - PIRELLI 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.”

NEXT UP FOR OUR F1 TYRES

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. For the second consecutive round, the Sprint format will be in operation, 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 sixth round of the season are the C2, C3 and C4, the same as here in Shanghai.