Official F1 Journal Formula 1 Friday Round Up- China

Practice

Cars were straight out on track for the only Practice session of the Sprint Weekend, ahead of Sprint Qualifying later in the Afternoon. Zhou made his first laps of his home track to the thunderous applause of a huge Chinese crowd. 
The 2 Alpine cars were the only ones out on the Soft tyres to begin with while all other cars chose the Hard or Medium rubber for their initial laps, Verstappen went top on his Mediums to set the pace early over Gasly in 2nd. There was a steady stream of laps  from all but the Ferrari's who with 50 minutes left on the clock left the pits for the first time in the session joining the Alpines on the Soft tyres. 
The 2 Redbulls cars set the early pace with Verstappen fastest by 0.068 over his team mate and 0.382 faster than Hulkenberg in 3rd with 45 minutes to go. 

A Red flag came out after just 15 minutes of running when the grass on the inside of turn 7 caught fire due to the sparks from the skid blocks on the bottoms of the cars, being blown onto the grass, causing it to catch fire. Once the grass had been extinguished  the session go going again with 41 minutes of running left. Losing anytime in the only practice session of the weekend is tough for the teams but at a track we have not raced at for 5 seasons or in this generation of car it was all the more important to come back out as quickly as possible to continue the data collection for all the cars and drivers. 

Hamilton was in an aggressive mood, diving up the inside of Hulkenberg into turn 15 and pushing the HAAS almost 4 wheels off the track before almost coming together with Piastri at the last corner forcing Hamilton to bail into the pit lane narrowly avoiding Hulkenberg who was still just behind the Mercedes, Hamilton was given a Black and White flag by the stewards for the incident. 31 minutes to go Leclerc went fastest on the soft tyres followed by his team mate Sainz in 2nd 0.252 behind him. Ocon seemed very comfortable in his Alpine going 5th fastest on the Softs in front of Norris in 6th.
Fernando Alonso misjudged the tail wind & the pit entry, overshooting the left hand turn into the pits and had to weave his way through the bollards to find his way to his pit box, Piastri did a similar thing a few minutes later but chose to find Reverse to get back to the pit entry. ​

Sargeant went 2nd fastest with 12 minutes to go as we began to see the teams put the Soft tyres on to do their Qualifying Simulation runs for Sprint Qualifying later in the afternoon. Albon was purple in all 3 sectors on his first soft tyre flying run beating Leclerc's lap by 8 tenths of a second.  
After all the cars had set their flying laps on the Soft tyres it was Piastri was fastest, his team mate Norris was forced to bail on a lap that looked faster than his younger team mate but traffic forced him to abort the lap, The 2 HAAS cars were enjoying the Shanghai circuit with both cars inside the top 4 with 2 minutes to go of the session. Stroll found his confidence as the session ended as he set a purple sector 2 and went fastest in his Aston Martin. The 2 Mercedes of Russell and Hamilton were down in 17th & 18th having not run the Soft tyres at all ahead of Sprint Qualifying.
It was a very mixed grid at the end of the sessions with 6 of the top 10 cars below 12th and neither Redbull in the top 2. Was it the track? the lack of data or was it all the teams running different data collection plans, luckily we didn't have to wait long to find out how it all shook out in China. 

Practice Result 

1 STR
2 PIA +0.327
3 VER +0.358
4 PER +0.388
5 HUL +0.799
6 MAG +0.816
7 OCO +0.911
8 ALB +0.927
9 RIC +0.936
10 BOT +1.228
11 ZHO +1.324
12 TSU +1.704
13 LEC +1.788
14 SAI +1.982
15 SAR +1.984
16 NOR +2.328
17 RUS +2.504
18 HAM +2.537
19 ALO +2.634
20 GAS +2.974

Sprint Qualifying 

After a dry practice Qualifying began with the threat of rain on the horizon but many varying reports on when during the Sprint Qualifying it would start to fall if at all. 

SQ1- Mediums Tyres for All

All the cars were straight out on to the track trying to get a banker lap in before the potential rain might fall being caught out without one could ruin your whole weekend. Leclerc set an early very competitive lap, faster than both Mclaren's, Mercedes and his team mate Sainz. Alonso beat the Ferrari's time before Verstappen went top of the times only to be beaten by Sergio Perez by over 3 tenths. As the track temperature continued to drop Russell found himslf in the drop zone with under 3 minutes left on the clock. 

Sainz jumped up to  4th along side his team mate behind the 2 Redbull's until Norris put in a cracking lap to go 2nd and 2 tenths behind Perez while Oscar Piastri in the sister Mclaren could only manage 5th. ​Russell was under massive pressure when he started his final flying lap. He was dead last and out of qualifying until he managed a decent lap good enough for 12th and into SQ2.Daniel Ricciardo was happy with his efforts as he bested team mate Yuki Tsunoda in Qualifying for the 1st time this year.  Tsunoda couldn't improve and was out in SQ1 joined by the 2 Williams and 2 Alpine's as the grass on the inside of turn 7 caught fire for a 2nd time today causing a delay to the start of SQ2
.  

SQ1 Result

1 PER                 2 NOR +0.274
3 VER +0.346     4 LEC +0.427
5 PIA +0.432       6 SAI +0.609
7 ALO +0.773      8 HUL +0.814
9 STR +0.851     10 MAG +0.923
11 BOT +1.002   12 HAM +1.071
13 RUS +1.200   14 RIC +1.211
15 ZHO+1.434    16 GAS +1.522
17 OCO +1.610   18 ALB +1.702
19 TSU +1.782    20 SAR +1.813

SQ2  All on Medium Tyres 

After a short delay while the fire at turn 7 was extinguished, the cars were straight out on track to set their laps with the threat of rain now imminent and the need to set a dry lap before the track becomes wet is essential to progress through to SQ3 for the Sprint Pole shoot out. Norris was the 1st car on a lap followed by the sister Mclaren of Oscar Piastri. Norris went top till his time was beaten by Piastri, Sainz went 3rd fastest and Alonso 4th till Leclerc wnt fastest by a tenths of as second. Both Stake Sauber cars had good pace on their first runs and as the Redbulls crossed the line to set their first SQ2 times they went 1st(VER) and 3rd(PER) as they were given a 3 minute warning for the rain to begin. 

Russell again was struggling down in 11th as the rain started to fall, Ricciardo pit not thinking he could improve now rain was falling but Russell wanted to give a lap a go but it was clear within a couple of corners that an improvement wasn't possible and he was out of Sprint Qualifying and would start the Sprint 11th. Zhou though had set a decent banker lap and had made it through to the top 10 shoot out for the first time this year and in front of his home fans who showed their appreciation by shaking the circuit with their cheers. ​

SQ2 Result

1 VER
2 LEC +0.105
3 PER +0.175
4 PIA +0.247
5 NOR +0.441
6 SAI +0.446
7 BOT +0.450
8 ALO +0.513
9 HAM +0.681
10 ZHO+0.701
11 RUS +0.739
12 MAG +0.867
13 HUL +0.872
14 RIC +0.947
15 STR +1.071

SQ3 Top 10 Shoot Out- All on Intermediate tyres  

SQ3 was declared a wet session and rather than the planned Soft tyres for all the cars we saw the Green walled Intermediate tyres on all the cars as the rain continued to fall in Shanghai. 
All the cars went straight out to try and set a lap before more water was laid on the track. Norris had a big snap and was on to the run off at turn 6 while Charles Leclerc had a big spin, causing him to hit the wall at turn 9, lucky for the Ferrari driver the car was ok and he could continue. It wasn't just Leclerc who was off the track though as we saw reigning World Champion off onto the gravel at turn 6. 

In all the chaos both Mclaren's had found some speed and were setting purple  sectors. Piastri went fastest till he was beaten by Perez. Zhou also had a moment at turn 6 while his team mate Bottas went 2nd fastest. Verstappen continued to struggle with his car in the wet having his lap deleted dropping him to 7th fastest, and then going off again(turn15) on his next flying lap meaning he again would lose that time as well. ​

Alonso went top after a great lap from the Spaniard as Norris had his latest lap deleted for track limits. Hamilton was the next man to show his skill in the rain as he put his Mercedes to the top of the times, faster than Verstappen who could only manage 2nd fastest and then 3rd as Norris went top of the times again......but Norris' lap was deleted!!! Putting Hamilton top again Sainz went 4th fastest ......untilllllllllllll Norris's lap was reinstated!!!!!! Robbing Hamilton of his first pole in 2024 as he crossed the line. Norris took a mega pole in the rain in what was honestly the best Qualifying we have seen in a long time. ​​

SQ3 Result 

1 NOR
2 HAM +1.261
3 ALO +1.975
4 VER +2.088
5 SAI +2.274
6 PER +2.435
7 LEC +2.626
8 PIA +3.050
9 BOT +3.104
10 ZHO
​+5.597

Our 1st day of action back in China was a brilliant one and only served to inflate the already enormous anticipation for this weekends racing! Day 1 Mclaren are top.

Joanna Blackmore 
Writer @f1journal.co.uk