Max Verstappen Cruises to F1 Chinese Grand Prix Victory to Add to Eye-Popping Run
Max Verstappen dominated Formula 1’s first Chinese Grand Prix in five years, while Lando Norris surprised himself with a podium, and frustrations continued for Mercedes.
Autoweek rounds up the main talking points from the fifth round of the Formula 1 season.
Verstappen Adds China to Trophy Cabinet
China’s Sprint Race on Saturday indicated that Max Verstappen was likely going to dominate Sunday’s F1 Chinese Grand Prix, and surprise, surprise, that’s exactly what unfolded.
Verstappen stormed away from pole position and put 10 seconds on the chasing pack through the first stint, managing a two-stop strategy via a pair of mid-race safety car periods in the wake of Valtteri Bottas’ Sauber stopping on track.
Verstappen never looked remotely troubled en route to his first China victory, marking the 26th different circuit at which he has triumphed—second all-time only to Lewis Hamilton’s 31 locations. Among circuits currently on the schedule, only Singapore is missing from his trophy collection.
Verstappen's final margin of victory was 13.773 seconds ahead of runner-up Lando Norris and 19 seconds clear of Sergio Perez.
The win was the 58th of Verstappen's career, and 21st in his last 23 races.
A fourth comfortable win in five starts this season (all with a margin of at least a dozen seconds) means Verstappen holds a healthy 25-point lead over teammate Perez in his pursuit of a fourth successive title.
“This was definitely one that I wanted to win,” said Verstappen. “I’ve been on the podium here, but I haven’t won here before. That was great, for sure. I definitely just enjoyed the whole weekend. It’s been really nice, with a great car.”
Formula 1 heads next to Miami, where Verstappen has won twice—after starting third there in 2022, and ninth in 2023.
Lando Norris Surpasses Own Expectations
McLaren's Norris has a tendency to downplay his and McLaren’s prospects, but it was hard to disagree with the young driver's pre-race presumption that Red Bull would be well ahead of McLaren, and that Ferrari would also move past.
A podium, said Norris, was out of reach. And yet Norris wound up second to the dominant Verstappen, to take the 15th podium and eighth runner-up finish of his career.
Norris passed Fernando Alonso during the early stages to hold third, as the threat from Ferrari that Norris anticipated never materialized. Norris stopped only once, behind the mid-race safety car, and that gave him track position over two-stopping Sergio Perez of Red Bul;.
Perez was unable to offer a threat across the remainder of the Grand Prix after using up his tires to get by Charles Leclerc.
“We were just quicker than we thought,” said Norris. “The limitations, the places we expected to struggle, probably a lot more, we didn’t struggle as much in. We’re still learning about the car. It’s as simple as that. This track is very different. The tarmac is quite odd. Maybe that played into our hands a bit more than we were thinking.
"Just little things. We’re not making it up. We’re giving our honest opinion on where we’re going to be. More often than not, we don’t feel that optimistic because all year, we’ve been behind Red Bull. All year, we’ve been behind Ferrari. There’s no reason for us to suddenly think we should be ahead. Nothing really pointed to us having an amazing race today, especially the Sprint race yesterday, which was our best version of events of what can go down. But things just went to plan and went very smoothly from Lap 1 onwards.”
Ferrari retained second place in the Constructors’ Championship with Leclerc finishing fourth and Carlos Sainz fifth, while Norris’ McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri had a more challenging run to eighth place, compromised mid-distance from sizeable rear-end damage.
Mercedes Struggles Continue
Mercedes’ tricky start to 2024 continued and there has been a trend in its overall performance.
Across the four Grands Prix that Mercedes has finished, its lead driver (in each case George Russell) has had a similar margin to the winner: 46.7 seconds in Bahrain, 39.9 seconds in Saudi Arabia, 45.9 seconds in Japan, and 38.7 seconds in China. In Australia, Russell was 50.1 seconds adrift when he crashed on the penultimate lap.
In China, Russell did well to convert an eighth-place start on the grid into a sixth-place finish, while Lewis Hamilton recovered from 18th after a qualifying mistake to finish ninth.
But in year three of the regulatory cycle, Mercedes is still searching for the answers to questions it cannot be sure are being asked correctly. It is now an increasingly distant fourth in the championship, 143 points behind one-time close rivals Red Bull, and can consider itself fortunate that what looked to be an improving Aston Martin has fallen out of the mix in 2024.
“The car that we have under us is not currently fast enough,” said Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. “However, we must make sure that we are not trying to find a silver bullet each weekend when it comes to how we run the car; we need to focus on getting the basics right, and maximizing the package we have.
"Today, we didn't have the car in the right window: we made too many extreme changes after the Sprint and that made the most important part of the weekend much more challenging.”
F1 Chinese Grand Prix
at Shanghai
Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 56 Laps, 1:40:52.554, 25 points
Lando Norris, McLaren, +13.773 seconds, 18 points
Sergio Perez, Red Bull, +19.160, 15 points
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, +23.623, 12 points
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari, +33.983, 10 points
George Russell, Mercedes, +38.724, 8 points
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin, +43.414, 7 points
Oscar Piastri, McLaren, +56.198, 4 points
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, +57.986, 2 points
Nico Hulkenberg, Haas, +1:00.476, 1 points
Esteban Ocon, Alpine, +1:02.812
Alexander Albon, Williams, +1:05.506
Pierre Gasly, Alpine, +1:09.223
Zhou Guanyu, Kick Sauber, +1:11.689
Lance Stroll, Aston Marin, +1:22.786
Kevin Magnussen, Haas, +1:27.533s
Logan Sargeant, Williams, +1:35.110
Daniel Ricciardo, RB, +25 laps
Yuki Tsunoda, RB, +30 laps
Valtteri Bottas, Kick Sauber, +37 laps
