Verstappen wins the Chinese Grand Prix! Fifth race of the season featured collisions, safety car exits and a surprise second place finish

Formula 1 has had a sprint weekend in China. Max Verstappen won the main race on Sunday, with Lando Norris taking second place after an absolutely superb performance. The Chinese Grand Prix also offered accidents, a safety car exit and three drivers failed to finish.

Max Verstappen started the fifth race of the season from the first place and took pole position in Saturday’s qualifying. He was joined on the front row by his Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez. Fernando Alonso took third, while McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri secured fourth and fifth.

Sixth and seventh place after Saturday’s qualifying belonged to the Ferrari drivers. Charles Leclerc took the sixth starting slot and Carlo Sainz the seventh. The full starting grid order for the Chinese Grand Prix can be seen in the F1 post below.

Chinese Grand Prix – start and opening laps

Fernando Alonso made a very good start to the fifth race of the season, overtaking Mexican Pérez at the first corner to move into second place. The legendary Spaniard even attacked Max Verstappen as well, but had to tame his car to get into the corner.

The driver nicknamed “Checo” had trouble warming up his tyres on the varied surface, just like the Ferrari drivers. Leclerc dropped to eighth after the start, Sainz to ninth. George Russell, on the other hand, made a great start and jumped to P6, Nico Hülkenberg to P7.

However, the Monegasque in the service of Ferrari got ahead of Hülkenberg on the second lap, as did the Spaniard Sainz. A DRS train then formed on the Shanghai circuit, with Pérez getting back past Alonso into second place on lap five.

At the stroke of lap eight, Norris also got ahead of Alonso. A lap later, Leclerc was back up to sixth ahead of Russell. Verstappen, Pérez, Norris, Alonso, Piastri, Russell, Leclerc, Sainz, Stroll, Bottas – that’s how the top ten points standings looked before lap 10.

It was at the end of the tenth lap that the drivers started to go to their mechanics and the order became very shaky. Pierre Gasly made a terrifying pit-stop. One of the mechanics even crashed while changing a tyre and the Frenchman fell to the tail of the field.

An interesting moment came on lap 22, when Valtteri Bottas stopped the car near the race track due to a technical failure. Race management then resorted to a virtual safety car, which the drivers used to change tyres.

Two laps later, the safety car was on track. Verstappen and Pérez changed to the hardest set of tyres, while Alonso surprisingly got the softest compound. Gasly (3 seconds), and Zhou Guangyu (5.3 seconds) had a terrible pit-stop.

Restarts and accidents

Verstappen, Norris, Leclerc, Pérez, Sainz, Alonso, Russell, Piastri, Ricciardo, Stroll – this was the order of the elite ten before the restart.

Norris reacted very well to the restart and Verstappen’s retirement, but after a few laps the safety car had to take to the track again. On the restart there were two contacts. Lance Stroll rear-ended Ricciardo, Kevin Magnussen shot down Júki Cunda.

Both the Aston Martin driver and the Haas driver were subsequently handed a ten-second penalty. Understandably, this led to several overtakes and another change in the order. The safety car pitted at the end of lap 31 and the race could be restarted.

Three laps later, Ricciardo retired his monocoque due to damage to the rear of the floor. Like Cunoda and Bottas, the Chinese Grand Prix ended prematurely for him. The last pit-stop of the race was taken by Alonso, who stopped for a medium set of tyres on lap 44. The Spaniard dropped to 12th place.

Verstappen claimed the win, with Norris second!

Verstappen eventually secured the race win, but the Red Bull double was not the one predicted earlier. Indeed, Brit Norris showed very good race pace and it’s safe to say he comfortably took his McLaren to second place.

Not even the Mexican Pérez could keep up with him, losing less than ten seconds to the McLaren driver! Not a very good card for teammate Verstappen. He overtook Leclerc in the last third of the race. The Ferrari of the Chinese Grand Prix probably expected a slightly better result.

Alonso, after his pit stop, still overtook several rivals, including Lewis Hamilton, who had gained nine positions from his starting position. Sainz finished fifth, Russell sixth, Alonso seventh, Piastri eighth, Hamilton ninth and the last point was scored by Germany’s Hülkenberg. The driver of the day was deservedly Norris.

Source: F1 TV