2025 Chinese Grand Prix

We almost got a great gloves-off scrap between the McLaren drivers at the end. Instead, circumstances meant Oscar Piastri’s domination went unthreatened as he led home Lando Norris. But even as they each conserved their tyres ready for a late battle which never came, they had pace enough to distance themselves from the closely-matched Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari, which finished in the order of George Russell, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and sprint race winner Lewis Hamilton (with the Ferraris subsequently excluded for weight and plank transgressions respectively).

There were moments during the weekend – notably during sprint qualifying and race – when McLaren’s superiority wasn’t evident. Certainly, the MCL39 didn’t appear to have as big a performance advantage over the field in Shanghai as in Melbourne. However, its under-performance in the sprint – which paved the way for Hamilton to win there from pole – was corrected for the main event as the team took the 50th 1-2 of its history.

The volatility in form through the weekend came from a combination of a new high-grip track surface on a track with several fast and long corners, the related very high minimum front tyre pressures imposed by Pirelli and the way the dominant tyre grip mechanism changed as the new surface rubbered in. Different cars and teams reacted to these changes in different ways. Even different drivers within the same team, in the case of McLaren.