Ferrari had a day to forget at Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix with a double disqualification for Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, but fake team order drama further added to team boss Fred Vasseur’s misery.
Hamilton and Leclerc were running fourth and fifth respectively after their first pitstop around lap 20 when the tifosi were first alerted to team orders being in play, and Hamilton appearing not best pleased by them. “We are swapping cars in Turn 14,” Hamilton’s race engineer Riccardo Adami instructed him, with the seven-time world champion’s reply: “When he’s closer, yeah.”
It was the first message picked up by the world feed, with broadcasters then speculating Hamilton was not too keen on letting his team-mate past. That was followed by Adami’s “We will swap this lap”, with Hamilton’s curt reply: “I’ll tell you when we swap” presented on the broadcast just as the Briton let his team-mate through.
That further caused a stir in tifosi living rooms, especially with Leclerc nursing a broken front wing, even though it soon proved to be the correct decision. Hamilton continued to struggle for pace and eventually pitted again to finish well behind the Monegasque driver, before technical infractions caused both drivers to be thrown out of the results.
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Unbeknownst to the TV audience though, it was Hamilton himself who suggested swapping places in the first place. “I think I’m going to let Charles go, because I’m struggling,” he said. But that radio message, a crucial piece of missing context that would have prevented TV commentators from speculating, never made it onto the broadcast.
In his media debrief team principal Vasseur was not happy with what he felt was rights holder FOM manufacturing drama around his team, one week on from Hamilton’s conversations with Adami also being blown out of proportion in the media on the internet.
“I think this is a joke from FOM, because the first call came from Lewis,” he told reporters afterwards. “Lewis asked us to swap, but to make the show, to create the mess around the situation, they broadcast only the second part of the question. I will discuss with them.”
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal and General Manager, Scuderia Ferrari
Photo by: Ferrari
Motorsport.com understands F1 has since reached out to Vasseur to have that conversation, explaining that its omission of Hamilton’s first message was not a deliberate decision to mislead viewers, but an oversight.
An F1 spokesperson confirmed: “There was absolutely no intention of presenting a misleading narrative regarding the Ferrari team radio. Due to other situations developing during the race the message from Lewis was not played but this was not intentional.”
Speaking about how Hamilton’s adaption to Ferrari has been portrayed, Vasseur said: “[The media] made a huge mess last week on the messages between the engineer and Lewis. Honestly, when Lewis came back to the briefing room he said to this engineer ‘good job’.
“But because they were discussing about how to use K1 and he said, ‘Don’t speak when I am in the fight’, I had tons of questions.
“It’s Lewis who asked to swap. I’m not even sure that you will have this kind of situation 10 times during the season in other teams. From the pitwall we really appreciated the call from Lewis to say, ‘Guys, I’m losing the pace, I’m keen to swap.’ The collaboration between the two guys is mega, I can’t complain a single second about something.”
Hamilton opened his Ferrari account with a first sprint pole on Friday, followed by a dominant sprint race win on Saturday morning.
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Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
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After Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu admitted the team was off the pace in Australia, he conceded it may take time to correct early-season issues affecting its cars.
That did not stop a number of F1 Fantasy players sticking with a combination of Haas elements in their teams for the heavy points-scoring sprint weekend in Shanghai.
New leader RW Moore, who was fifth in the Race our Writers standings after Melbourne, jumped up into top spot, benefitting hugely from having both Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman among his five-strong drivers’ team as well as selecting Haas as one of his constructors.
With Lando Norris selected with the DRS Boost and McLaren as the other team, RW Moore’s ‘HeelsF1Team’ is sitting pretty at the top of the leaderboard with 609 points.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lando Norris, McLaren, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
It was a totally different story for the overall highest point scorers from the Chinese Grand Prix weekend though, with three teams using their Limitless chip to not be constrained by the $100million cap.
J. Kamp, Rob Zet and Mike Strachan all had the same idea as their respective teams all scored a huge 395 points.
Cashing in on the use of the chip, the trio all selected Lando Norris, Max Verstappen, George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, while using their DRS Boost on race winner Oscar Piastri and choosing McLaren and Mercedes as their constructors.
For the Motorsport Network writers, F1 journalist Erwin Jaeggi is now setting the pace with ‘The Jaeggimeisters’ totalling 417 points.
An extra DRS chip on Norris, as well as having McLaren as one of his constructors was the key to Jaeggi moving clear of the pack with the best-performing team of the weekend – 264 points collected with Isack Hadjar, Gabriel Bortoleto, Carlos Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg and Aston Martin also contributing,
Check back on Motorsport.com and on our social channels next week to get our writers’ advice on who they will be selecting for the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka on 6 April.
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In this article
Mark Mann-Bryans
Formula 1
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When Formula 1 revealed that Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli had won its driver of the day poll, having crossed the finishing line in eighth place, this news generated the customarily sneering response. When team boss Toto Wolff congratulated his driver over the team radio, the eye-rolling was almost palpable.
And yet, while the results of the social media poll are often fatuous, in this case there were reasons to be impressed with Antonelli’s performance: floor damage had caused a huge shift in his W16’s performance characteristics. The likely culprit is debris from Charles Leclerc’s contact with Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap.
Although the consequences of the damage showed up in data, Mercedes chose not to apprise Antonelli of the reason for his car misbehaving until later in the race.
“He had extensive floor damage,” said Wolff in his post-race press conference. “We don’t know exactly why, whether he ran over Charles’s endplate, but there was a massive hole in the floor, the titanium streaks [skid plates] were gone.
“Considering he had a car which was severely impaired – holding onto it, finishing eighth, not complaining, just getting on with the job, shows the maturity and the potential he has.”
Although Leclerc’s impact with Hamilton’s sidepod resulted in an immediate shower of debris, the main part of the endplate didn’t detach until later on the opening lap. Antonelli was running behind Leclerc on track through the opening sequence of corners as he fought Isack Hadjar for seventh place, making that move stick on the outside at the exit of Turn 3 – where Verstappen was on an inside line, trying to pass Leclerc on the left.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Antonelli was undercut by Yuki Tsunoda at the first round of pitstops, then had the indignity of being overtaken by Esteban Ocon with two wheels on the grass. Though he slipped back relative to Ocon through his final stint, Antonelli got a position back when Tsunoda had to pit for a new front wing.
“I could feel something was weird from lap one,” Antonelli told Sky Sports F1 after the race. “Yesterday the limitation was the front left, today the limitation was the rear for the whole race – which was quite unusual, I found it really weird.”
The Shanghai circuit is something of an outlier on the F1 calendar because the front axle is stressed more than the rear: there are fewer areas requiring hard acceleration and most of the corners are slow to medium-speed. Crucially, the tightening radius of the opening sequence of right-hand corners combines with the fast right-hander onto the back straight to punish the front-left tyre.
Having a rear limitation on a car here makes it vulnerable at the exit of that opening sequence of turns, and under traction onto the back straight – which is highly damaging to overall lap time.
“It was really hard to keep up, I was trying to look after the rears as much as possible,” said Antonelli. “Mentally it was a good experience, a good lesson, because it was tough.”
Antonelli then gained another two positions after the race when both Ferraris were disqualified – Leclerc because his car was found to be underweight, Hamilton because of illegal plank wear.
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Stuart Codling
Formula 1
Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Mercedes
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The second Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen has long been considered one of the toughest roles in Formula 1. Still, speculation about a driver change after just two races is extreme, even by Red Bull standards.
Liam Lawson began his full-time Red Bull campaign with optimism, but by now admits that he is struggling more than expected. The New Zealand driver has finished 18th, 20th, and 20th in his three qualifying appearances – placing him last on the grid two consecutive times, something no Red Bull driver has experienced before. His race results – DNF, 14th and 12th – don’t look much better, with the 12th place in China boosted by three post-race disqualifications.
Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, paddock sources suggested a driver change before Japan is not out of the question. Horner didn’t dismiss that possibility after the race either, saying the team will review all the data: “We have data from the first two races and we’ll look carefully at that. We have 400 engineers in the team and 600 sensors on the car, so we have a huge amount of information to go through.”
Asked whether Lawson’s seat for Suzuka is guaranteed, Horner repeated that the team has a “responsibility” towards him, but avoided giving a direct answer. “We’re two races in and we’ve just finished this race. I think we take away the information we have.” While one might argue Lawson should be judged on tracks he knows like Bahrain and Suzuka, Horner downplayed the significance of that aspect: “I think these guys get up to speed pretty quickly. We’ll take away a stack of data and have a look at it.”
If the data suggests Lawson is unlikely to improve in the short term, Red Bull may well feel the need to act. “I think Liam still has got potential. We’re just not realising that at the moment. I think the problem for him is he’s had a couple of really tough weekends. He’s got all the media on his back and the pressure naturally grows in this business. I feel very sorry for him. You can see it’s very tough on him at the moment.” Internally, Red Bull’s main dilemma is balancing the hard data with the human side – and whether it’s fair to make a change after giving Lawson a chance for just two races.
Tsunoda in the spotlight – but promotion before Japan a major risk?
Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
If Red Bull does make a switch, Yuki Tsunoda is the obvious candidate to step up. The Japanese driver wasn’t promoted over the winter, but Helmut Marko offered notable praise in China, implying that his opinion on Tsunoda has changed. “Yuki is in the shape of his life,” the Austrian said. “He’s a different Yuki now than in recent years. He changed management, he has a different approach, and is more mature. It took a while for him, but now it seems to be working.”
It underlines that Tsunoda is being taken more seriously by Red Bull than before. His Red Bull test in Abu Dhabi is part of the current evaluation, together with data from the past race weekends at Racing Bulls. “He did very well in that test with us,” Horner said. “It’s useful data for us, but we always look at the bigger picture.” When asked if Tsunoda is the first in line, the Red Bull team boss replied: “I’m not even going to comment on a change, because that would be your first headline! We have quite a bit of information. We’re going to go away and have a good look at it, and work with Liam to do the best that we can for him.”
With personal aspects playing a role in any decision on Lawson, exactly the same applies to Tsunoda. Putting him into the tricky RB21 ahead of his home race at Suzuka is a major risk for all parties involved if he struggles like Lawson. Tsunoda has impressed so far, but as Verstappen has noted the Racing Bulls car is completely different from the Red Bull: “When I talk to Liam, that Racing Bulls car is definitely easier to drive than our car.”
Is Red Bull’s car the real issue?
Ultimately, the root of the problem may not be the drivers, but the car itself. The second Red Bull seat is challenging for several reasons. First, Verstappen’s sheer pace is difficult to match in equal machinery and makes any team-mate’s job daunting. Once drivers start to experiment with extreme set-ups to match him, things usually get even worse. Secondly, the RB21 is tailored to Verstappen’s driving style to some extent, as sources within the team confirm. The car has a very sharp front end and a loose rear, a combination that many drivers have found impossible to master.
Alex Albon described the Red Bull car as “a [computer] mouse with sensitivity at 100%” – extremely reactive and therefore equally difficult to handle for anyone with a different driving style. Since Daniel Ricciardo’s departure in 2018, none of his successors – Gasly, Albon, Sergio Perez and now Lawson – have been able to handle the task of sitting next to Verstappen. From the outside, there is little reason to believe Tsunoda would fare differently at the main team.
Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
From a technical standpoint, there’s logic to building a car with the extreme characteristics that suit Verstappen better than others. The Dutchman has delivered with four world titles and is Red Bull’s only chance to compete at the front. In 2025, things got even more difficult for any driver next to him. Red Bull’s dominance from 2022 and 2023 is gone which means it needs to push the boundaries even more to be competitive. Add to it that the current F1 field is extremely competitive, meaning the second Red Bull can get knocked out of Q1 with a deficit that was good enough to secure a place on the front row just a few years ago.
Colapinto a surprise candidate at Racing Bulls?
The other big question for Red Bull is what to do with Lawson and the second Racing Bulls’ seat, if they decide to go ahead with a driver change. The most straightforward solution would be to swap Lawson and Tsunoda, allowing Lawson to reset at the sister team.
“Liam is a young guy. We’ve got a duty to look after him. And we’re going to do the best that we can to support him. He’s still a very capable driver. We know that. We’re just not seeing it for whatever reason. We’re not seeing him able to deliver that at the moment,” Horner said.
This leaves room for interpretation. Protecting Lawson could mean three different things: keeping him at Red Bull for some more races, giving him the comfort of an easier car at Racing Bulls, or temporarily benching him as Red Bull’s reserve driver. The last option would be particularly harsh given how long Lawson had to wait for his F1 debut, but is fuelled by Spanish media reports linking Franco Colapinto to Racing Bulls. Helmut Marko was seen in Alpine’s hospitality in Shanghai on Sunday – and it wasn’t to taste the French coffee.
Franco Colapinto, Alpine
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
How serious the Colapinto option is remains to be seen for now, as it becomes clear that this storyline is partly pushed by the Argentinian’s camp. It’s linked to Jack Doohan at Alpine. The Australian had a particularly difficult debut in Abu Dhabi, but has shown more speed during the first race weekends of 2025. Doohan is currently making a better impression at Alpine than before, perhaps better than expected. He made a rookie mistake in Melbourne, but managed to match Pierre Gasly’s race pace in China and was close to the Frenchman in qualifying. Doohan was only a tenth off on Saturday and ahead of Gasly in sprint qualifying.
If an opportunity at Alpine takes longer than thought, it’s normal that Colapinto’s management is looking at all places where an opportunity may present itself. In the world of F1, where everyone is talking to everyone, it’s equally logical for Red Bull to explore the market and assess all available options. Colapinto (temporarily) to Racing Bulls is simply one of those options.
Neither the Red Bull seat next to Verstappen nor the Racing Bulls situation has been decided yet, and given the different interests and parties involved it’s too complex to predict now.
But one thing is clear: the next few weeks are crucially important for the Milton Keynes-based team. Verstappen will visit the Red Bull factory this week to discuss the RB21’s weaknesses and push for improvements to save his championship hunt. At the same time the team needs to make decisions on the driver front much earlier than anticipated. These are season-defining weeks already, at least if Red Bull doesn’t want to fall behind in both championships.
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In this article
Ronald Vording
Formula 1
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Franco Colapinto
Red Bull Racing
RB
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When Formula 1 revealed that Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli had won its driver of the day poll, having crossed the finishing line in eighth place, this news generated the customarily sneering response. When team boss Toto Wolff congratulated his driver over the team radio, the eye-rolling was almost palpable.
And yet, while the results of the social media poll are often fatuous, in this case there were reasons to be impressed with Antonelli’s performance: floor damage had caused a huge shift in his W16’s performance characteristics. The likely culprit is debris from Charles Leclerc’s contact with Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap.
Although the consequences of the damage showed up in data, Mercedes chose not to apprise Antonelli of the reason for his car misbehaving until later in the race.
“He had extensive floor damage,” said Wolff in his post-race press conference. “We don’t know exactly why, whether he ran over Charles’s endplate, but there was a massive hole in the floor, the titanium streaks [skid plates] were gone.
“Considering he had a car which was severely impaired – holding on to it, finishing eighth, not complaining, just getting on with the job, shows the maturity and the potential he has.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Although Leclerc’s impact with Hamilton’s sidepod resulted in an immediate shower of debris, the main part of the endplate didn’t detach until later on the opening lap. Antonelli was running behind Leclerc on track through the opening sequence of corners as he fought Isack Hadjar for seventh place, making that move stick on the outside at the exit of Turn 3 – where Verstappen was on an inside line, trying to pass Leclerc on the left.
Antonelli was undercut by Yuki Tsunoda at the first round of pitstops, then had the indignity of being overtaken by Esteban Ocon with two wheels on the grass. Though he slipped back relative to Ocon through his final stint, Antonelli got a position back when Tsunoda had to pit for a new front wing.
“I could feel something was weird from lap one,” Antonelli told Sky Sports F1 after the race. “Yesterday the limitation was the front left, today the limitation was the rear for the whole race – which was quite unusual, I found it really weird.”
The Shanghai circuit is something of an outlier on the F1 calendar because the front axle is stressed more than the rear: there are fewer areas requiring hard acceleration, and most of the corners are slow to medium-speed. Crucially, the tightening radius of the opening sequence of right-hand corners combines with the fast right-hander onto the back straight to punish the front-left tyre.
Having a rear limitation on a car here makes it vulnerable at the exit of that opening sequence of turns, and under traction onto the back straight – which is highly damaging to overall lap time.
“It was really hard to keep up, I was trying to look after the rears as much as possible,” said Antonelli. “Mentally it was a good experience, a good lesson, because it was tough.”
Antonelli then gained another two positions after the race when both Ferraris were disqualified – Leclerc because his car was found to be underweight, Lewis Hamilton because of illegal plank wear.
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In this article
Stuart Codling
Formula 1
Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Mercedes
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F1 2025’s second race of the season in Shanghai was held in vastly different circumstances than Melbourne’s mixed-weather thriller, but this week’s winners-losers section features some familiar figures.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
If a composed wet-dry-wet win in Australia showed Lando Norris is driving like a title contender, then team-mate Oscar Piastri has answered with his own statement of intent over the Shanghai weekend. Keen to take revenge for the unlucky off in his home race that dropped him to ninth, the Australian looked the superior McLaren driver all weekend and produced a cool, almost boringly exquisite pole-to-flag drive on Sunday – a maiden F1 pole and a third career grand prix win.
After he bided his time, Norris’ late brake issues prevented him from mounting a challenge, but Piastri’s win never really looked in doubt, having also trumped Norris in the sprint qualifying and race. Norris surely never just assumed he would have it his own way this year, but Piastri has definitely shown signs that he has taken learnings from an inconsistent 2024 campaign and become a stronger contender already. With one win apiece, both drivers’ title campaigns are up and running.
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Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Jade Gao – Getty Images
Lewis Hamilton’s excellent pole-to-flag win in China’s sprint was a welcome tonic for both fans of the seven-time world champion and the tifosi. But when it came to the main grand prix, Ferrari appeared to fall back to its natural spot in qualifying as the McLarens produced a cleaner Q3 this time. As Charles Leclerc pointed out after the race, it is much harder to perform miracles from the third row, but neither driver looked particularly at ease. They were eventually powerless to keep Max Verstappen at bay after a woeful medium-tyre opening stint for the Dutchman.
Leclerc’s tap with Hamilton at the start could have ended a whole lot worse, but if anyone can explain why the Monegasque still enjoyed better race pace despite a broken front wing – and Ferrari therefore rightfully swapped places – please send your answers on a postcard to Maranello. Ferrari may have avoided this category by hanging on to its 18-point haul on Sunday, but afterwards both drivers were disqualified for two different technical infractions: Leclerc for his car being underweight and Hamilton for excessive skid wear. The good news is there is potential in this SF-25, the bad news is the Scuderia hasn’t been extracting it yet on Sundays.
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Winner: Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
You have to hand it to Max Verstappen. One week after swooping in to smash and grab second in Australia, the Dutchman snatched another result his flawed RB21 didn’t really deserve. Verstappen has developed an air of inevitability, extracting more than the car seems capable of, as we will discuss further below. But amid Red Bull’s woes, Verstappen somehow heads to Japan sitting second in the drivers’ championship.
It remains to be seen how long the four-time champ can stay there, but it won’t be for a lack of trying. Arguably, the way he has been manhandling the 2025 Red Bull is as impressive – if not more – than some of his title-winning campaigns.
Loser: Red Bull
Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
But even the rapid and mercurially talented Verstappen doesn’t have the escape velocity to defy the gravity of Red Bull’s downturn. Incoming Liam Lawson has been going through a shiver-inducing nightmare of a Red Bull stint, and even risks facing the axe as early as Japan, according to our sources.
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But while Yuki Tsunoda may or may not have been a better pick, Lawson’s failure to get up to speed thus far is also Red Bull’s.
Red Bull has burnt several drivers in that second seat now, and it is clear the team has not addressed the car balance woes that frustrated Verstappen and defeated Sergio Perez last year, with Verstappen asserting that Lawson would have been much quicker driving the sister team’s Racing Bulls car.
Likely linked to the car’s lack of consistency, the outfit will have some soul searching to do to address its crippling tyre degradation issues, with Verstappen nowhere in the opening medium-tyre stint in China, shipping an average of around eight tenths to the McLarens. But its season isn’t headed for complete disaster just yet, with much improved pace on hard tyres offering more hope that inherently Red Bull can still get near McLaren, given a much-needed round of updates.
Winner: Haas
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
We were genuinely worried for Haas after a sobering Australia curtain raiser, but the team has reacted to the VF-25’s poor maiden outing in the best possible way with a double points finish. On the standard medium-hard strategy- but with a very early pitstop that worked out well – Esteban Ocon showed solid speed, passing the likes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli with two wheels on the grass to seventh on the road, which became a spectacular fifth after the double exclusion of the Ferraris.
Credit also goes to Oliver Bearman after the British rookie rebounded from a messy weekend in Melbourne. Having qualified further back, Bearman banked on a reverse hard-medium strategy, unknowingly facing the task of an extremely long stint on the more brittle medium tyres. But Bearman held firm and got his elbows out in traffic to pick up a point, which ended up becoming four by the time the Shanghai scrutineers had packed up.
“Everyone has a failure, but failure shouldn’t define you. What defines you is how you get up from that failure, and I think as a whole team we showed that,” a buoyant team boss Ayao Komatsu mused. The aerodynamic problem Haas discovered in Australia is still there, even if it went relatively unpunished in China, but the team capitalised on the opportunities this weekend threw its way. You can’t ask for more than that.
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Loser: Racing Bulls
Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber, Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team, Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
A repeat entrant in this category is Red Bull’s satellite team, which for the second consecutive weekend saw a grand opportunity to bank big points go begging by getting its strategy wrong. Both Yuki Tsunoda and Isack Hadjar stuck to the expected two-stop strategy, instead of following the mainstream’s push towards a one-stopper. Tsunoda could yet have scored points if his vibrating front wing hadn’t alarmingly collapsed, but if you look at where Haas has finished… that should have been you.
There are positives for the Anglo-Italian team, though. There is more evidence its car is fast across different layouts and track conditions, and Hadjar has rebounded admirably from his nightmare Australia exit with a hugely impressive weekend, outqualifying Tsunoda in all three qualifying stages on Saturday.
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Amid all the chatter about McLaren’s formidable speed and Hamilton’s sprint success for Ferrari, George Russell has seemingly quietly nestled himself right in between Verstappen and Piastri in the drivers’ championship with an excellent weekend. Russell had no business splitting the McLarens in qualifying – courtesy of a Norris slip-up at the hairpin – and gave it a good go trying to undercut his fellow Briton in the race.
Russell was powerless to resist the quicker McLaren but finished well clear of Mercedes’ direct rivals to claim his second podium in as many races.
That consistency is going to go a long way when the top teams are so closely matched, and thus far he has had the measure of his inexperienced but fast team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, which he admitted he isn’t taking for granted.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Carlos Sainz just about escapes an entry again after not getting up to speed with the Williams as quickly as he would have liked. A little bit more confusing is Alpine, which looked capable of scrapping with Williams and Racing Bulls in Bahrain testing – if not slightly ahead on long-run pace depending on who you ask.
But after the China weekend, Alpine is now the only team not to score points yet, having missed a chance to benefit from Ferrari’s double DSQ by Pierre Gasly’s car being thrown out as well for missing the weight limit. Jack Doohan is acquitting himself well, being very close to Gasly on one-lap performance, but equally didn’t have the race pace to escape the bottom of the pack and copped a 10-second penalty for elbowing Hadjar out of the way.
Alpine clearly has a much better starting package than last year’s overweight machine, but at the moment it will be frustrated to just be on the wrong side of what is an extremely close midfield.
In this article
Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
George Russell
Oscar Piastri
Ferrari
Red Bull Racing
Racing Bulls
Haas F1 Team
Alpine
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Alex Kalinauckas and Ronald Vording wrap up their coverage of the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix as McLaren dominated proceedings with its 50th 1-2 finish, as Oscar Piastri took victory ahead of Lando Norris.
Alex gives a review of the action, why he agreed with Piastri calling it his “most complete” weekend in F1 and how the race converted into a one-stopper. Also discussed is the link between the strategy change in the race and both Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly being disqualified for their cars being underweight, and Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification for an over-worn skid block.
There’s also a big explainer from Ronald on Liam Lawson’s future with Red Bull after another poor showing, and whether the series as a whole could switch to V10s in 2028, and what it could mean for the regulation change next year.
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Donald Trump’s peculiar Tweet during the 2020 United States presidential election has long since become a meme. You can imagine, given Ferrari’s double disqualification from the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix, that the Scuderia will be wishing fervently that everyone had just packed up and flown home on the Saturday, after Lewis Hamilton won the sprint race.
Events in China then got rapidly out of hand as Hamilton and Charles Leclerc qualified a mildly disappointed fifth and sixth for the grand prix – where Charles contrived to hit his teammate on the opening lap, and yet managed to be fast enough with a broken front wing for the team to order Lewis to let him past. Hamilton naturally chafed but eventually capitulated, though Leclerc derived little benefit because Max Verstappen caught and passed him anyway during the second stint.
Then both drivers were disqualified for different reasons after the race, just as Leclerc, Hamilton and team boss Frederic Vasseur were trying to accentuate the positives in their various press conferences.
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Both disqualifications were slam dunks to which Ferrari could offer the stewards no defence or mitigation but a mea culpa. Perhaps most damningly, others have suffered similar DSQs in recent history which provided lessons Ferrari ought to have noted.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Hector Retamal – AFP – Getty Images
Leclerc, along with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, was thrown out when his car was found to be slightly below the minimum weight limit of 800kg.
It’s now 30 years since the FIA introduced the current system of having a minimum weight which includes the driver as well as the car. The aim then was to reduce the disadvantages faced by taller and/or heavier drivers, although this didn’t quite work for several reasons.
Firstly, Michael Schumacher thumbed his nose at the rules by turning up to the pre-season weigh-in 8kgs heavier than the last time he’d stood on the FIA’s scales – having drunk water “like an elephant” immediately beforehand, according to his race engineer. That loophole was closed by introducing post-race weigh-ins but there was still an incentive for drivers to be as light as possible: most cars were built well underweight, then brought up to the minimum with ballast weights which could be located strategically around the car to benefit handling balance.
Although there’s less wiggle room now – hence the minimum rising from 595kg in 1995 to 800kg today to account for stronger crash structures, hybrid powertrains, bigger wheels, and so on – most cars on the grid come in below it and carry ballast.
In Leclerc’s case, his car was weighed along with the remains of his endplate, which had been recovered from the track. At this point it was bang on the limit; re-weighed with a spare front wing, it was actually heavier.
Once the mandatory two litres of fuel had been drawn from the tank for testing, though, the car was found to weigh 799kg.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images
In an official statement the team blamed excessive tyre wear caused by Leclerc being on a one-stop strategy. But while even F1’s official tyre supplier predicted this to be a two-stop race, actually that strategy proved to be an outlier as the new C2 hard compound – unraced before this event – turned out to be more durable than expected.
Even so, Racing Bulls appeared to be the only team unprepared for this eventuality. Hamilton stopped twice, taking on mediums for his final stint, but he had the luxury of being able to do this because he only lost one position on track while doing so.
Last year George Russell was disqualified after finishing first in Belgium for being 1.5kg underweight, and Mercedes’ rationale was similar: he was on a one-stop strategy, Russell had lost weight through sweat, and the car had lost weight through plank and tyre wear.
But in that case the swap to a single-stop strategy was an unplanned one. The majority of the field stuck to two stops and didn’t see it coming.
F1 is a sport of fine margins and cars cannot afford to run heavier than absolutely necessary. But Mercedes inadvertently crossed a line in Spa last year and, as it acknowledged afterwards, it learned from its mistakes.
Other competitors should have learned from this obvious lesson too – and, given that a one-stopper was more of a possibility in Shanghai this weekend, Ferrari had an opportunity to mitigate the effects of tyre wear.
Hamilton’s disqualification will be just as painful because this, too, has happened before – to Lewis himself, in Austin in 2023. Leclerc was disqualified from the same race, for the same reason: excessive skid pad wear.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
At the time, Mercedes and Ferrari said they had been caught out by the “unique combination” of a bumpy track with a sprint weekend format “that minimised the time to set up and check the car before the race”. While China was also a sprint weekend, the freshly resurfaced track was anything but bumpy.
Also, Ferrari changed the set-up of Hamilton’s SF-25 between the sprint race and grand prix qualifying. Lewis complained it “really put the car on a knife-edge” – did these changes contribute to his car bottoming out too much?
Even if not, this was still an own goal. Tellingly, Ferrari offered no mitigation and told the stewards it was a “genuine error”.
“With regard to Lewis’ skid wear, we misjudged the consumption by a small margin,” said a Ferrari team statement. “There was no intention to gain any advantage.”
Under Vasseur, Ferrari has been noticeably less chaotic than in the past. But the events of China show that old habits are difficult to shake…
In this article
Stuart Codling
Formula 1
Ferrari
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Donald Trump’s peculiar Tweet during the 2020 United States presidential election has long since become a meme. You can imagine, given Ferrari’s double disqualification from the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix, that the Scuderia will be wishing fervently that everyone had just packed up and flown home on the Saturday, after Lewis Hamilton won the sprint race.
Events in China then got rapidly out of hand as Hamilton and Charles Leclerc qualified a mildly disappointed fifth and sixth for the grand prix – where Leclerc contrived to hit his team-mate on the opening lap, and yet managed to be fast enough with a broken front wing for the team to order Hamilton to let him past. Hamilton naturally chafed but eventually capitulated, though Leclerc derived little benefit because Max Verstappen caught and passed him anyway during the second stint.
Then both drivers were disqualified for different reasons after the race, just as Leclerc, Hamilton and team boss Frederic Vasseur were trying to accentuate the positives in their various press conferences.
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Both disqualifications were slam dunks to which Ferrari could offer the stewards no defence or mitigation but a mea culpa. Perhaps most damningly, others have suffered similar DSQs in recent history that provided lessons Ferrari ought to have noted.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Hector Retamal – AFP – Getty Images
Leclerc, along with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, was thrown out when his car was found to be slightly below the minimum weight limit of 800kg.
It’s now 30 years since the FIA introduced the current system of having a minimum weight that includes the driver as well as the car. The aim then was to reduce the disadvantages faced by taller and/or heavier drivers, although this didn’t quite work for several reasons.
Firstly, Michael Schumacher thumbed his nose at the rules by turning up to the pre-season weigh-in 8kgs heavier than the last time he’d stood on the FIA’s scales – having drunk water “like an elephant” immediately beforehand, according to his race engineer. That loophole was closed by introducing post-race weigh-ins but there was still an incentive for drivers to be as light as possible: most cars were built well underweight, then brought up to the minimum with ballast weights that could be located strategically around the car to benefit handling balance.
Although there’s less wiggle room now – hence the minimum rising from 595kg in 1995 to 800kg today to account for stronger crash structures, hybrid powertrains, bigger wheels, and so on – most cars on the grid come in below it and carry ballast.
In Leclerc’s case, his car was weighed along with the remains of his endplate, which had been recovered from the track. At this point it was bang on the limit; re-weighed with a spare front wing, it was actually heavier.
Once the mandatory two litres of fuel had been drawn from the tank for testing, though, the car was found to weigh 799kg.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images
In an official statement, the team blamed excessive tyre wear caused by Leclerc being on a one-stop strategy. But, while even F1’s official tyre supplier predicted this to be a two-stop race, actually that strategy proved to be an outlier as the new C2 hard compound – unraced before this event – turned out to be more durable than expected.
Even so, Racing Bulls appeared to be the only team unprepared for this eventuality. Hamilton stopped twice, taking on mediums for his final stint, but he had the luxury of being able to do this because he only lost one position on track while doing so.
Last year George Russell was disqualified after finishing first in Belgium for being 1.5kg underweight, and Mercedes’ rationale was similar: he was on a one-stop strategy, Russell had lost weight through sweat, and the car had lost weight through plank and tyre wear.
But in that case the swap to a single-stop strategy was an unplanned one. The majority of the field stuck to two stops and didn’t see it coming.
F1 is a championship of fine margins and cars cannot afford to run heavier than absolutely necessary. But Mercedes inadvertently crossed a line in Spa last year and, as it acknowledged afterwards, it learned from its mistakes.
Other competitors should have learned from this obvious lesson too – and, given that a one-stopper was more of a possibility in Shanghai this weekend, Ferrari had an opportunity to mitigate the effects of tyre wear.
Hamilton’s disqualification will be just as painful because this, too, has happened before – to Lewis himself, in Austin in 2023. Leclerc was disqualified from the same race, for the same reason: excessive skid pad wear.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
At the time, Mercedes and Ferrari said they had been caught out by the “unique combination” of a bumpy track with a sprint weekend format “that minimised the time to set up and check the car before the race”. While China was also a sprint weekend, the freshly resurfaced track was anything but bumpy.
Also, Ferrari changed the set-up of Hamilton’s SF-25 between the sprint race and grand prix qualifying. Lewis complained it “really put the car on a knife-edge” – did these changes therefore contribute to his car bottoming out too much?
Even if not, this was still an own goal. Tellingly, Ferrari offered no mitigation and told the stewards it was a “genuine error”.
“With regard to Lewis’ skid wear, we misjudged the consumption by a small margin,” said a Ferrari team statement. “There was no intention to gain any advantage.”
Under Vasseur, Ferrari has been noticeably less chaotic than in the past. But the events of China show that old habits are difficult to shake…
In this article
Stuart Codling
Formula 1
Ferrari
Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics
The Ferrari Formula 1 team says excessive tyre wear from the Chinese Grand Prix’s surprise one-stop race is behind Charles Leclerc’s car being found underweight, while it admitted “misjudging” Lewis Hamilton’s skid wear.
Leclerc and Hamilton finished fifth and sixth at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday, but soon after the race the Ferrari pair were disqualified due to failing post-race scrutineering.
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Leclerc’s car was found to be one kilogram underweight, while Hamilton’s rearmost skid block showed excessive wear beyond what is allowed in the FIA’s technical regulations.
The double disqualification meant Ferrari lost 18 constructors’ points in one fell swoop, with the team issuing a statement explaining what it thought had gone wrong.
The team said the Chinese Grand Prix moving from an expected two-stop strategy to a one-stopper meant Leclerc suffered more tyre wear than expected, and it claimed that his worn-down rubber was behind his car being under the weight limit.
However, it made no excuses for Hamilton’s skid wear, admitting it had misjudged its calculations before Saturday qualifying, when cars enter parc ferme conditions.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Hector Retamal – AFP – Getty Images
“Following the FIA post-race scrutineering, both our cars were found not to conform to the regulations for different reasons,” Ferrari stated. “Car 16 was found to be underweight by 1kg and car 44’s rearward skid wear was found to be 0.5mm below the limit.
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“Charles was on a one-stop strategy today and this meant his tyre wear was very high, causing the car to be underweight. With regard to Lewis’ skid wear, we misjudged the consumption by a small margin.”
The team said it had “no intention to gain any advantage” and vowed to investigate what had gone wrong and learn from its errors.
“We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again,” the statement continued. “Clearly it’s not the way we wanted to end our Chinese GP weekend, neither for ourselves, nor for our fans whose support for us is unwavering.”
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly could have benefitted from Ferrari’s double exclusion, but he too lost 11th place for being below the weight limit. In his stead, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Williams driver Carlos Sainz moved into the points.
The Haas team was the biggest benefactor from Ferrari’s disqualification as Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman moved up to fifth and eighth respectively, scoring a whopping 14 points in Shanghai.
Photos from Chinese GP – Race
In this article
Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
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