After a completely crazy qualifying in the rain on Friday, the sprint race delivered a result this Saturday in Shanghai that was much more in line with the usual hierarchy. As for first place in any case, with an easy victory for Max Verstappen, who signs an eighth success in this exercise, out of the thirteen sprint races organized since 2021.
Fourth on the grid, the Red Bull driver needed nine laps to find his usual place. While polesitter Lando Norris lost big by exiting the interminable first corner too wide under pressure from Lewis Hamilton, the Red Bull driver got stuck behind the Englishman’s Mercedes and the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso.
On the seventh of nineteen laps, Verstappen shifted gears and passed the Spaniard. He needed less than two laps to close his 1”8 gap on Hamilton and then pass him, without difficulty, with the help of his Red Bull’s DRS. Under the checkered flag, the Dutchman finished with a huge margin over his British rival: thirteen seconds!
Behind, Alonso found himself under threat from Sainz, Perez and Leclerc. On the sixteenth lap, the two Spaniards touched each other, Perez took the opportunity to take third place while Alonso suffered a puncture which led to his retirement. Shortly after, it was the turn of the two Ferraris to face each other, Leclerc emerging victorious from this internal duel against Sainz.
The McLarens of Norris and Piastri finished sixth and seventh, while Russell, the only driver to have opted for soft tires, grabbed the last point at stake ahead of the Chinese Guanyu Zhou. On the Alpine side, Esteban Ocon moved up from 17th to 13th place, while Pierre Gasly ranks fifteenth.
Teams will now be able to intervene on the F1 cars to modify their settings before qualifying, which will take place at 9 a.m. (3 p.m. in Shanghai).
2024-04-20 03:49:41
#Max #Verstappen #Red #Bull #wins #sprint #race
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