McLaren‘s Oscar Piastri controlled proceedings from pole position to take a cool, calm and collected victory at the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix.
A game of tyre preservation saw him lead McLaren team-mate Lando Norris home for a papaya one-two – the 50th in the team’s history – with Mercedes’ George Russell completing the podium.
The F1 Chinese GP weekend main event followed Lewis Hamilton’s Sprint heroics on Friday and Saturday, whereby he picked up pole and victory for Ferrari.
But it was Piastri who was the main man in GP qualifying, taking his maiden pole position to ensure he would head the grid at lights out on Sunday, with Russell alongside him on the front row.
READ MORE – Oscar Piastri considered aborting pole-setting Chinese GP lap
The rest of the grid at the Shanghai International Circuit lined up as they qualified apart from Liam Lawson, whose Red Bull troubles prompted a pit lane start.
The majority of the field opted to start on Mediums with Lance Stroll, Oliver Bearman and Lawson starting on hards.
At lights out, Russell got a decent start but Piastri swept across him at Turn 1 and Lando Norris bettered the Mercedes man to leap from third to second in his McLaren.
The two Ferraris had a great start also, launching from fifth and sixth on the grid to leapfrog Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to make the top five.
But as Verstappen noted, Leclerc, in fifth, sustained some damage to his front wing, pranging Hamilton in front of him, but a conversation with his race engineer confirmed he was safe to continue.
Although replays later showed that Leclerc’s left endplate was completely missing from his Lap 1, Turn 1 dance off the kerb and into Hamilton’s rear.
McLaren was then in a perfect early position, one and two, and poised to control the race, with Russell, Hamilton, Leclerc, and Verstappen in the chasing pack.
Behind them, Isack Hadjar was pipped by Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Racing Bulls team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, slipping to ninth and Haas’ Esteban Ocon leapfrogged Williams’ Alex Albon into 10th.
As the field came around to start Lap 4 of 56, Pierre Gasly noted that the brakes on Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin in front of him were on fire.
The veteran Spaniard slowed shortly afterwards, telling his team he had “no brakes” en route to an early retirement.
Through the first six laps, Norris had been flirting within DRS range of race leader Piastri, potentially pushing his tyres further than his young McLaren counterpart.
That could well have been proven as Piastri started to eke out a small gap, breaching DRS to the tune of 1.5s by Lap 8.
“I’m starting to struggle a little, left front,” Norris told Race Engineer Will Joseph.
Piastri had envisioned after qualifying, based on observations of Sprint winner Hamilton that leading the Chinese GP would prove pivotal in maintaining tyre life.
Norris starting to struggle while pursuing his team-mate backed up Piastri’s theory and the gap grew to nearly two seconds by Lap 11.
The pit-stop window kicks into motion
Gasly was the first driver to pit on Lap 11, swapping his Mediums for Hards, dropping from 12th to 18th.
More midfield runners pitted a lap later, including Tsunoda and Ocon, as the front of the pack continued to circulate.
Antonelli and Hadjar pitted on Lap 13 and Tsunoda undercut the Mercedes rookie with both Gasly and Ocon undercutting Hadjar.
On Lap 14, Hamilton and Verstappen became the first of the front pack to pit with both of them executing swift stops.
Crucially, both came out with clear air behind them to the midfield scrap being led by Tsunoda.
Russell meanwhile, said “I think it’s going to go one stop,” perhaps ready to repeat his Belgium heroics, albeit hopefully without disqualification.
Mercedes pitted him a lap later, along with race leader Piastri, pitted on Lap 15, leaving Norris some clear air as the new race leader.
Norris and Leclerc came in on Lap 16 and again, pitting earlier proved to be the right call as Piastri returned to a net race lead behind Albon, who was yet to pit.
Norris meanwhile came out in between Stroll and Russell, the latter pipping his McLaren rival through Turns 1 and 2 before then taking the Aston Martin driver’s third place position a few corners later.
Norris duly followed suit, but the damage was done in regards to losing out to his Mercedes adversary, having to wait until Lap 18 to pass him into Turn 1, returning to net second.
This all allowed Piastri to open up a 3.5s gap to Norris by Lap 20 with Albon still yet to pit his Williams as he extended his opening stint on Mediums.
Russell ran close behind the Williams driver, with Ferrari planning to execute a swap behind as Hamilton started to struggle in comparison to Leclerc.
On Lap 21 Albon finally chose to pit, he was running in 11th before the cycle of pitting began and his extended stint dropped him to 14th, but with a healthy tyre advantage over the cars in front.
The Ferraris executed their swap at this point, making the top five: Piastri, Norris, Russell, Leclerc and Hamilton.
Verstappen was cut adrift to the tune of 3.4s, as was Norris to the race leader by a 4s margin.
Tyre preservation prevents movement in the order
Leclerc unleashed allowed the Monegasque driver to close in on Russell for third place, drawing into DRS range by Lap 25.
Hamilton, meanwhile, was asking for feedback from Ferrari regarding where he could find more pace, keen to protect his 3.6s margin from Verstappen behind.
As the laps ticked by, there was little movement in the order.
Leclerc was unable to get close enough to Russell through Turn 13 to mount a serious challenge for third and Norris, who was starting to close in on Piastri was wary of running into his team-mate’s dirty air.
By Lap 34 everyone was settled into a rhythm as tyre management restricted any entertainment occurring, Norris was asked to be patient, to conserve his tyres and informed that Russell behind was indeed planning a one-stop.
Across the next two laps, Hadjar and Tsunoda kicked off pit-stop proceedings for those willing to two-stop – but this proved to be a mistake by the Racing Bulls outfit, surrendering a strong foothold in the points and unable to fight a way back in.
Although it looked as if the front runners would play it safe with a follow-the-leader one-stop strategy.
Hamilton didn’t want to adopt that strategy though, pitting for a fresh set of Hards on Lap 38, ceding fifth to Verstappen with a 21s margin to recover.
Would his fastest lap moments later prompt those ahead to stop again?
By Lap 44, Norris looked like the first of the front runners to start losing speed in his ageing Hards, dropping almost 5s adrift of Piastri.
Into the final six laps, it was clear and obvious that Hamilton and the Racing Bulls made a mistake two-stopping.
Hamilton was stuck 12s behind Verstappen and the Racing Bulls couldn’t make forward progress, Tsunoda pegged back by a freak front wing break and Hadjar being forced off track by Jack Doohan’s Alpine defending too aggressively.
At the front, Piastri looked assured of victory with Norris forced into managing a progressively worse brake pedal issue, but a 7s margin back to Russell provided some breathing room.
Someone who didn’t have any breathing room was Leclerc in his Ferrari.
Verstappen’s Red Bull had come alive under low fuel and he closed in on the struggling Ferrari and made his move into fourth at Turn 2 on Lap 53.
And so, as the chequered flag fell, Piastri banished his home-race heartbreak a week earlier to take his first victory of the 2025 campaign, with Norris nursing his MCL39 home to second.
Russell completed a second podium run in as many weeks, closing into 1.3s of Norris due to the McLaren’s brake issue, with Verstappen ending as he started in fourth.
That left the Ferraris of Leclerc and Hamilton to finish fifth and sixth, or did it? Post-race scrutineering checks found Leclerc’s Ferrari to be underweight and Hamilton’s to have excessive plan wear.
Both Scuderia men were disqualified and Ferrari had to hold its hands up to the glaring errors. “There was no intention to gain any advantage,” a Ferrari statement read.
“We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again. 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.”
Ocon was a massive benefactor of Ferrari’s woe, which was in stark contrast to the jubilation of Hamilton’s Sprint victory.
Haas’ Frenchman had already benefitted massively from the two Racing Bulls pitting and his earlier moves on Albon and Antonelli, but Ferrari’s double-DSQ granted him a fifth-place finish. Antonelli and Albon took sixth and seventh respectively.
After enduring a horror show at the back of the field in Australia, Haas completed a fine weekend in Shanghai as Bearman took eighth.
The British youngster executed a fine strategy, starting on the Hards, pitting on Lap 29, passing four cars and capitalising on rivals pitting to rise from 17th to 10th in a space of 12 laps, gaining two extra positions after Ferrari’s blunder.
Ninth should have gone to Gasly, but he too was disqualified for an underweight car, paving the way for Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz to round out the top-10 in the final classification.
But the day belonged to Piastri, who cemented his title credentials with a fine performance.
