Formula 1 fans hoping for some chaos in order to create uncertainty and more entertainment will surely be satisfied after the Friday track action in view of the Chinese Grand Prix. The sprint qualifying session at the 5.451-kilometre Shanghai International Circuit took place after just one free practice session that left more unanswered questions than certainties, and at the end of SQ2, rain arrived to further disrupt the situation. Nevertheless, some interesting readings can be drawn from the Friday action in China, starting from the result in the rain.
Lando Norris’s pole position for the Sprint on the McLaren comes after an SQ3 where only the track limits issue seemed to represent an obstacle to what on the track was appearing as a dominant performance from the English driver and the Woking team. The pole position was rightfully confirmed for Lando Norris, with a mess from the FIA not so much in readmitting his lap but in initially canceling it, given the clarity of the race director’s notes on the matter, the only regulatory reference on the topic. Regarding the performance in the rain, the difficulty for everyone was clearly in bringing the intermediate tires to temperature; those who couldn’t manage it ended up sliding everywhere on the track, as on an ice sheet, as we saw more or less everyone do, including Red Bull and Ferrari, whose performance is not particularly assessable in such a particular track conditions.
On the other hand, McLaren number 4 continued to find the correct window lap after lap, ending up with record advantages over the pursuers: 1.2 seconds on Lewis Hamilton, almost 2 on Fernando Alonso, a pair of pursuers with over 80 years and 9 world titles together, who certainly lacked no experience in managing such difficult situations. But the young Briton showcased a talent not to be underestimated, aided by a car that, thanks to the aerodynamic load and a mechanics that brings a great amount of energy to the tires in these conditions, managed to find the right tire temperature window with almost a lap in advance compared to the competition.
Oscar Piastri finished 3 seconds behind Lando Norris, a huge gap, but one which is partilly caused by a mistake in the last sector when, as seen from the telemetry data, the Australian driver’s car went into neutral between turn 15 and turn 16, costing him over 1.5 seconds, after Oscar Piastri had managed to pull off an extraordinarily deep braking at turn 14 that was bringing him towards the front row. McLaren, therefore, was undoubtedly the car to beat in wet conditions, with the impression, also from the free practices, of a good overall balance of the car, probably the third overall force, but still very close.
Lewis Hamilton also did well, finding a great performance all linked with experience on the tires, as did Fernando Alonso. If the Aston Martin still appeared quite on point in the free practice session and in SQ1 and SQ2, Lewis Hamilton’s result was a pure exploit, with a W15 that until SQ3 seemed to be in great suffering, showing a widespread lack of grip and a need for continuous corrections by the drivers.
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If we look at what happened before the rain began, we see that SQ2 ended with Max Verstappen in the lead and Charles Leclerc in second place just a tenth behind. Although they were running on medium tires, the data is of great interest, and it’s worth analyzing the performance comparison between the two in more detail.
Looking at the general parameters, we notice that the indicators related to aerodynamic load are very similar, indicating that there isn’t a marked difference in downforce at the moment between the two cars. Max Verstappen spends significantly more time at full throttle compared to Charles Leclerc (52.6% versus 48.7%), and almost all of this difference is in the approach to turns 7-8, where the Dutchman manages to remain full throttle while the Monegasque is forced to partially lift. We can highlight by analyzing the telemetry data what are the points where Charles Leclerc loses the most to Max Verstappen because they all seem to have a common pattern. Once again, at the start of the lap, Red Bull number 1 gains, but the braking phases continue to be a strong point for Ferrari, even in a complicated corner like the first one in Shanghai.
Looking only at sector time, the doubt could have been that in a section where the front end is so important, it was precisely the handling of the first corners that caused Charles Leclerc’s delay of over 1.5 tenths from Max Verstappen in the first sector. However, looking closely at the data, it’s noted that the problem doesn’t seem to lie neither in the entry nor in the cornering, but rather in the exit, especially when it’s time to get back on the throttle while maintaining a certain steering angle. The Red Bull RB20 single-seater once again excels in terms of traction, while the SF-24 car still seems not entirely sorted at the rear, with a tendency to provide little confidence under maximum load both at the rear and laterally. It doesn’t seem to be an aerodynamic balance problem but rather the mechanics, which also involve the differential settings, crucial on corner exit, for example, not yet having the necessary perfection to challenge Red Bull even in accelerations, after making giant strides in entry and cornering.
Turn 8 follows a similar profile, being a very long corner with a lot of lateral grip, while turns 10 and 13 confirm the impression of this difficulty for the rear end to “push” the car forward when there’s also a high lateral load value. Charles Leclerc approaches the final corner with a gap of 2 and a half tenths, which seems accurate, but it reduces to just one tenth due to a mistake by Max Verstappen in the final corner. Overall, therefore, we saw a Ferrari that on a challenging and selective track still manages to stay close to Red Bull on a dry lap, with the feat of putting at least one of the Milton Keynes cars behind and, above all, with some fairly limited deficiencies to work on. As mentioned earlier, the McLaren car appeared decisively as the third force on the track in dry conditions, not far from Ferrari, with a general value scale that is confirming itself from race to race, with the exception of Kick Sauber, which was surprisingly able to place both Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas in Q3.
The Sprint race on Saturday morning will finally reveal something about the pace. We will therefore see a Sprint event that promises to be decidedly interesting and entertaining: the two Red Bull cars and the two Ferrari cars start behind three potentially slower cars, with the exception of Lando Norris who might have the opportunity to finally score a win, albeit in the short race, if Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton manage to give a hard time to the four overtaking behind them. The curiosity lies in seeing how the cars behave on the tires in a long run under equal conditions, albeit with low fuel load. Obviously, an important factor will be to stay out of trouble, as there is very little time between the sprint and the qualifying for the race, and an incident in the short race could compromise the entire Chinese weekend.
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