Luke’s Weekend Review – Chinese GP 2024

Lap 21 is where the drama started in the race as we see Valtteri Bottas pull off onto the runoff at Turn 11 as his engine went and the VSC comes out which triggers Ferrari to call in Leclerc to get a cheap stop which brings Leclerc out back in 5^th from 3^rd and Norris also gets called in at the end of the same lap to get some fresh boots on and comes back out in 3^rd. The marshals were finding it hard to move Bottas’s car as it seemed to be stuck in gear, so the Safety Car comes out to bunch the field and get a crane to clear the Sauber of Bottas. Red Bull took this opportunity to double stack once more to put their drivers onto fresh tyres to the people around them, so they are not sitting ducks and again they managed to choreograph the stunt perfectly as they got an impressive 1.9 second stop as well. While Perez was in the pits however, Norris and Leclerc managed to get ahead of him on track which will make Perez’s race that much harder to get on the podium.

After 5 laps under VSC and Safety Car we got the message that the Safety Car will be coming in and we’ll go back to racing. Max managed to get the jump on Norris as he managed to go just after the hairpin and got a bit of a gap between himself and Norris. His teammate Perez was immediately under attack by Sainz and Sainz was in turn under pressure from Alonso behind him on the softs as he locks up braking into the hairpin and causing some mayhem as we see Lance Stroll go right in the back of Daniel Ricciardo as he wasn’t expecting him to be slowing down but there was nowhere for Ricciardo to go as there was Oscar Piastri ahead of him. A bit further ahead we also see Kevin Magnussen dive bomb Yuki Tsunoda in Sector 2 making contact and getting Tsunoda a puncture and having to retire. This caused the Safety Car to come back out after not even a full lap of racing due to the debris on track and Tsunoda’s car.

Both incidents get noted by the stewards and Stroll and Magnussen both get a 10 second penalty for causing collisions in the race which Stroll was really unhappy about saying that it was all Ricciardo’s fault. After a few laps and when everything seemed to be cleared, we hear Max asking why the Safety Car is still out on Lap 30 and GP responded that he suspects that there is still debris on track which Max responded jokingly that if they consider the marbles around Turn 14 then he agrees. It seemed that race control were listening in as on Lap 31 the Safety Car comes in and Max prepares the pack for a 2^nd restart. This time round Norris and Leclerc were a bit more prepared for Max to go at the hairpin which he did, and they were much closer to him this time, but he was still too fast for them to make any moves.

The start was much cleaner this time as we had no incidents but we get a message saying that Logan Sargeant and Nico Hulkenberg were under investigation for a Safety Car infringement and a while later we see Sargeant getting a 10 second penalty which I think was a bit harsh as from the replay we can see that Hulkenberg was coming out of the pits while Sargeant was on the track and at the Safety Car line Hulkenberg was marginally ahead and Sargeant stayed ahead which I don’t think Sargeant would have been able to tell. Daniel Ricciardo after having Stroll crash into him after the first Safety Car Restart seemed to be dropping places as he went from 9^th to 13^th in 2 laps and the team called him on Lap 33 to retire the car due to a lot of floor damage which was a heart breaking moment for VCARB as that meant that both drivers retired from the Chinese GP.

At the back of the grid we see both Stroll and Magnussen going for it fighting for places early after the restart as the pair switch places 7 times in one lap but in the end, the Aston Martin of Stroll emerged victorious from this mini battle however on Lap 35 he was called in the pits to serve his penalty and a change of tyres. At the front, Leclerc was doing his best defending against the Red Bull of Perez behind him but the Red Bull was too quick for the Ferrari and on Lap 39 Perez managed to get back in 3^rd in the podium places and on the hunt for Norris in 2^nd place to make it a Red Bull 1-2 however it seemed that Leclerc had done enough in making Perez fight for 3^rd place and take enough out of his tyres plus Norris’s pace was too good.

Aston Martin’s gamble with Alonso didn’t pay off after putting him on softs while the 1^st Safety Car was out and on lap 47, he had to pit in for mediums which made him come back out in 12^th, but this meant that he could push quali laps for the remainder of the race. This is exactly what Alonso did as by Lap 47 he was already back in the points as he clears Alex Albon and his previous teammate Esteban Ocon. From here he managed to clear Hulkenberg on Lap 48 and Sainz got a radio message advising him that they are thinking Alonso might be close to him in P5 by the end of the race. While getting close to Hamilton on Lap 49, Alonso had a heart dropping moment as on Turn 16 he dipped his rear wheels on the gravel and had a massive snap of oversteer and nearly loses the car completely but his reflexes kept him in the race and by the end Sector 1 on the following lap he was still able to get past Hamilton and Piastri later the same lap.

In the end we see Max Verstappen taking the chequered flag followed by Lando Norris, Sergio Perez, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, George Russell, Fernando Alonso, Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg form the top 10. Special mention has to go to Hamilton who managed to finish in 9^th when he started in 18^th and didn’t have the best opening stints which he might not have seen as something to celebrate but it was not an easy thing to do for him. Lando Norris was voted Driver of the Day for the spectacular drive he had finishing in 2^nd place when he started in 4^th and managing to keep Perez at bay while the fastest lap was taken by Fernando Alonso which got him an extra point as a consolation prize for finishing in 7^th after starting the race in 3^rd place.

Nice touch by the Chinese GP as they had a spot especially for Zhou Guanyu in front of the grandstands for him to park in front of the fans which got him a standing ovation after a great race from the home hero and this brought him to tears due to all the emotions.

After the race it was also announced that Daniel Ricciardo will get a three place grid penalty in Miami for overtaking Hulkenberg under the Safety Car. Ricciardo commented saying that he thought he could given that Hulkenberg had passed him under the Safety Car but stewards commented that this was allowed based on the regulations.

Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Chinese GP? We now head into a week break before we make a return to Miami for the Miami GP which will also be a Sprint weekend.