Official F1 Journal Formula 1 Sprint Saturday Round Up- China

Its the first Sprint Race of 2024 here at the Shanghai Circuit in China and w have a new format, rather than the 'Sprint Saturday' format that saw the cars Qualifying and race the Sprint in one day in 2024 Sprint Qualifying is on a Friday after the only Practice session of the weekend and the Sprint is run on the Saturday morning before Qualifying for the Sunday Grand Prix.

Sprint Race

Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton lined up on the Front row and as the lights wet green they both got a great start and were side by side round the 1st 2nd and almost 3rd corner before  Norris just couldn't hold the line out of turn 3 and ran wide, on to the runoff tarmac and dropped down to 6th before Leclerc also passed him leaving him down in 7th after just 5 corners. Alonso had a good start from 3rd, fending off Verstappen through the first sequence of corners. Hamilton had a decent lead over Alonso in 2nd and Sainz was on the back of Verstappen in 3rd with Perez close behind the pair looking to pass the Ferrari. Home Driver Zhou had a safe start holding onto 9th after the 1st lap.

Lap 4 Alonso was within DRS range of Hamilton, Russell was pushing forward and was up to 10th, almost in the points and Leclerc and Norris were having a great battle for 6th but despite some good tries the Mclaren just couldn't pass the Ferrari as they both made gains on Perez ahead in 5th.
Lap 7 Verstappen began to catch Alonso for 2nd dropping the gap from almost 1.5 seconds to passing the Spaniard in just 2 laps with 1.8 seconds to find to catch Hamilton for the lead. As it would turn out Hamilton would help max to close the gap by going deep on the brakes at turn 14 allowing the Reigning Wold Champion to close on him and just half a lap later he passed Hamilton for the lead with 10 laps to go. 

Lap 11 Alonso was at the head of a growing DRS train as Max disappeared into the distance from Hamilton pulling out a gap of almost 4 seconds just 2 laps after he passed Hamilton. Russell (the only man to start the race on the Soft tyres) was starting to reap the rewards of his controversial tyre Strategy as he began to lap almost half a second faster than the Mclaren of Piastri ahead of him and occupying the last points paying position. 

Lap 14 The 5 drivers from Alonso in 3rd and Norris in 7th were within a second of each other all desperate to pass a struggling Alonso. Turn 14 Sainz had his best look at Alonso yet and Leclerc also making a move on Perez but neither could get the move done as Norris started to fall out of DRS range of the 5 car battle for 3rd. Again on lap 16 Leclerc made a move on Perez into turn 14 but Perez just had the better left foot and held the position. Ahead Sainz was very close to Alonso down the start finish straight and as they went through turn 2 Sainz was shaping up for a pass into turn 6, Alonso struggled on the exit, Sainz managed to get along side and as they ran together through turns 7 & 8 the 2 touched going into turn 9 Alonso dropped behind Sainz but dove up the inside of turn 10(a very ambitious move to put it politely) pushing them both wide and allowing Perez past into 3rd with Leclerc now on the gearbox of his team mate who had now dropped to 5th. But Sainz wasn't done and went down the inside of Alonso at turn 12 finally getting the move done and leaving Alonso exposed to a rapid Leclerc behind who also passed the Aston Martin had dropped from 3rd to 6th in less than a lap with Norris looking to do the same. 

As lap 17 began Leclerc was looking to pass his team mate on the start finish straight after almost coming together at turn 15, Leclerc made his move in to Turn 2, Sainz went wide almost drifting the Ferrari trying to keep it on the racing line but Leclerc was up the inside and ahead by turn 4, promoting him to 4th as Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin picked up a puncture forcing him to pit and ultimately retire the car, gifting Norris 6th place and Russell 8th and the final point of the morning after not making it into SQ3 yesterday. 

Lap 18 Norris was on the back of Sainz in the Ferrari running on struggling rubber after some mega battling the whole Sprint race. Verstappen was now 10 seconds ahead of Hamilton in 2nd and over 14 seconds ahead of his team mate in 3rd. Sainz would hold off Norris till the end of the race, Hamilton drove a great race to finish in 2nd 13 seconds behind Max, with Perez in 3rd a further 2 seconds back from the Mercedes. Zhou had a great race to finish 9th in front of his home crowd unfortunately just missing out on the final Sprint race point for 8th. 
Post race Alonso had a 10 second penalty added to his race time for the incident were he and Sainz touched at turn 8/9 on lap 16.

Sprint Result

1 VER                    2 HAM +13.043
3 PER +15.258      4 LEC +17.486
5 SAI +20.696        6 NOR +22.088
7 PIA +24.713        8 RUS +25.696
​9 ZHO +31.951     10 MAG +37.398
11 RIC +37.840     12 BOT +38.295
13 OCO +39.841   14 STR +40.299
15 GAS +40.838    16 TSU +41.870
17 ALB +42.998     18 SAR +46.352
19 HUL +49.630 
​20 ALO DNF + 10 sec pen

Grand Prix Qualifying 

Q1

Cars were straight out onto the track for Q1 with everyone keen to make set up changes to the car more suited to Qualifying after the cars had been set up for the Sprint race earlier in the day(a change to the Sprint Weekend format for 2024). Everyone chose to run the Soft tyres with the exception of Sainz who started the session on used Medium tyres. Hulkenberg was noted for trying to push his way into the queue of cars leaving the pitlane rather unceremoniously. We didn't begin to see competitive laps from the cars until well into the session. 
​Piastri was the first man to set a true pace lap but was quickly dropped to 2nd by Sainz who had swapped his Mediums for Softs to make his flying laps. Ricciardo reported seeing smoke from his RB but it didn't stop him from putting himself safely out of the drop zone and through to Q2 while Norris and Perez both needed good laps to get get out of the drop zone.

 Norris went top with his time and Perez found himself safely inside the top 10. Hamilton however was not so lucky and with his lap only being good enough for 12th and multiple other cars still to come most improving he ended the session down in 18th and out of Qualifying with Gasly doing a mega job for Alpine putting himself 10th fastest and knocking Zhou into the drop zone and sadly after his brilliant job in Sprint Qualifying out in the 1st round in front of his home crowd. Albon put his struggling William through to Q2 but the best his team mate Sargent could manage was 20th after spinning on his final run.

Q1 Result

1 VER  1'34.742   2 LEC +0.055
3 NOR +0.100      4 SAI +0.288
5 PIA +0.272         6 HUL +0.326
7 RUS +0.342       8 ALO +0.374
9 BOT +0.427      10 GAS +0.545
11 STR +0.592     12 OCO +0.614
13 ALB +0.642      14 RIC +0.701
15 PER +0.715     16 ZHO +0.763
17 MAG +0.774     18 HAM +0.831
​19 TSU +1.004       20 SAR +1.616

Q2

Q2 began and it wasn't the same rush of cars out on track as Q1 with most of the cars coming out at the 12 minutes to go mark. As they began their first flying laps it was the Mclaren's who were setting Purple sectors before Verstappen went purple in all 3 and became the 1st man into the 1'33.0 times just before Carlos Sainz went wide out of the final turn and spun across the track and into the wall at the outside of the track, bringing out a Red Flag immediately. Despite the impact with the wall the car was relatively undamaged and after getting the car restarted he returned to the pits under his own steam and thanks to the Red Flagged the team had time to fix the car so he could continue to take part in the session (an action that would later cause Aston Martin to challenge the Qualifying result). As the Red flag came out Verstappen was fastest by half a second over the Mclaren of Norris, Piastri was in 3rd, Alonso 4th, Perez 5th & Albon, Ocon, Gasly, Sainz & Russell occupied the drop zone. 

Q2 resumed with 6 minutes 44 seconds on the clock and 2 big names in the drop zone. Russell was straight out to set a time as he like Sainz were yet to put a time on the board. Verstappen soon joined him while everyone else waited to make their final runs. With 3 minutes on the clock Gasly lead the rest of the field out as Russell finished his lap putting himself 3rd fastest, splitting the Mclaren's and making Charles Leclerc the driver at risk. The Ferrari team did a great job to get Sainz back out and on to a flying lap that put him 2nd fastest, Leclerc couldn't beat his team mate, only going 3rd fastest as Valteri Bottas put his Stake Sauber car in to Q3 for the 1st time this year at the expense of Lance Stroll who was dropped into the drop zone and out of Qualifying. 

Q2 Result

1 VER 
2 PER +0.232
3 SAI +0.574
4 LEC +0.605
5 NOR +0.666
6 RUS +0.815
7 ALO +0.858
8 PIA +0.865
9 HUL +0.873
10 BOT +0.975
11 STR 1.044
12 RIC +1.140
13 OCO +1.429
14 ALB +1.447
​15 GAS +1.669

Q3

Verstappen and Perez were the first cars out on flying laps initially going purple in sector 1 till Alonso went faster still. As Perez crossed the line he was almost half a second down on team mate Verstappen, Alonso could only manage 0.394 behind the pole time, Piastri caught the gravel at the final turn giving it everything to get the best lap possible keeping it on the road unlike Sainz, he still went 4th fastest till he was beaten by his team mate Lando Norris. Sainz could only manage 6th fastest and Leclerc 7th with Hulkenbrg 8th, Russell 9th and Bottas 10th after their first runs.

As final runs began with 2 minutes on the clock Sainz was working hard inside the car as his team mate went purple in the middle sector. Russell set a brilliant lap to go 3rd fastest till Sainz, Leclerc, Piastri and Norris all beat his time before Alonso & Perez beat their times putting Perez 2nd, Alonso 3rd Norris 4th & Piastri 5th. Russell despite a really strong lap ended Qualifying in 8th. Hukenberg finished in 9th but was under investigation for a pitlane incident. 
After Qualifying Aston Martin officially registered a complaint with the FIA to Challenge the Qualifying Result based on Article 39.6 of the Sporting regulations which refrs to cars that stop on track during a session not being participate further in the session, which clearly refereed to Carlos Sainz's car in Q2. We are yet to hear the outcome at the time this article was posted. 

Q3 Result 

1 VER  1'33.660
2 PER +0.322
3 ALO +0.488
4 NOR +0.505
5 PIA +0.613
6 LEC +0.629
7 SAI+0.637
8 RUS +0.773
9 HUL +0.994
10 BOT +1.005

Joanna Blackmore 
​Writer @f1journal.co.uk