The second race of the season is over, and even though this one was dry, it wasn’t short of excitement. From lights out to the checkered flag, we had on track battles and suspense the whole way through. Some moments, though, stood out. Here are the highlights of the Chinese Grand Prix
- Race Start Excitement
- When the lights went out, Russell had a better reaction time than Piastri, which did cause some panic for the Aussie driver’s fans. However, he held him off and his teammate Lando Norris managed to pass the Mercedes driver to put the McLarens in first and second.
- Verstappen started the race in fourth position, however when the race started he promptly dropped two places as both Ferrari drivers behind passed him. Meanwhile, his teammate Liam Lawson was starting in the pit lane after qualifying 20th and the Red Bull mechanics made changes on his car.
- Leclerc and Hamilton got into a little scrap after they both passed Verstappen, which resulted in the front wing end-plate of Leclerc’s Ferrari coming off. The stewards did not make him pit to replace it, however, and his pace didn’t seem affected whatsoever by the damage, so a decision was made to never swap out a new front wing.
- Alonso Retires
- On lap five, Gasly was the one that noticed fire in Alonso’s brakes. From there, the Aston Martin driver coasted into the pits saying his brakes weren’t working. He had no choice but to retire the car.
- Tire Strategy
- Most teams came into the weekend perhaps favoring the two-stop strategy. However, as the race continued, most drivers reported a one-stop might be possible. But for McLaren, that didn’t mean boxing was all smooth sailing. When Lando went in to the pits, it became clear that George Russell had performed an undercut on the papaya driver, and the remaining Aston Martin of Lance Stroll was also able to sneak through. Norris lost a couple of laps while he waited for his tires to warm up before being able to pass both drivers. In general, though, the one-stop seemed to have been the way to go, as we saw Racing Bulls lose out thanks to their two-stop strategy.
- Ollie Bearman’s Moves
- Bearman was one of few drivers who started the race on hard tires, so the Haas driver went a long way until he had to box. When he came out of fresh medium tires, he was much faster than the cars around, and began his journey to the points, climbing up to P10 and helping Haas score points.
- Norris’ Stressful Finish
- Norris was sitting comfortably in second before he realized that his brake pedals were going long. With two laps to go, Lando was told to ease up on the brakes in order to bring the result home for McLaren. This caused Russell, in third, to significantly catch up to Norris after having been around 8 seconds back. Luckily for the papaya team, their 1-2 was retained as Lando drove it to the checkered flag without having an incident due to his brakes.
