Lewis Hamilton has won his first race for Ferrari, securing Saturday’s Sprint victory from pole position following an early duel Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Hamilton got a great start to take the lead into turn one, and managed the gap to Verstappen, until the Dutchman was passed for second on lap 15 by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri into the final hairpin. The pair completed the podium.
Piastri’s team-mate Lando Norris finished eighth. He started sixth, but went wide at the turn six hairpin, lost places, and only got past Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll in the closing laps.
Qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix starts at 7am GMT.
04:11 AM GMT
Right, it is qualifying later today
Not too long away, actually. That begins at 7am GMT and we will be here from a little before 6am for the build-up to that. Given the tyre wear issues in the race, qualifying is going to be crucial.
04:03 AM GMT
Lando Norris on his ‘dreadful’ race
“I just had a bad first lap. I just had to run into the grass a bit and lost a couple of positions, then it was just difficult to do a lot. Yeah, quali didn’t help but I wasn’t very good today either. In the race I just felt dreadful.”
04:02 AM GMT
Ferrari’s Vasseur speaks to Sky Sports about the win
He is obviously but sounded a note of caution, as he often does.
“I don’t want to be negative but it’s much easier when you’re in front to manage the tyres properly, and I think he did very well.”
03:56 AM GMT
Hamilton celebrates
03:54 AM GMT
Updated driver standings
03:45 AM GMT
Hamilton on his win
“Today, I woke up feeling great today. The first race was difficult. I really do feel a lot of people underestimated the steep climb it is to get into a new team. The amount of critics and people I’ve heard yapping on the way, maybe because they’ve never had the experience or unaware. It has felt great to come here and feel comfortable in the car. From lap one this weekend, really feeling on it. There’s so much grip on this new tarmac, it’s so hard to look after these tyres.”
03:44 AM GMT
Piastri reacts to a strong second
“It was a really productive sprint. I really learnt a lot in that one. As much as the result is nice, the way I got the result is an encouraging thing. We didn’t quite have enough pace for Lewis out front. We have got some good ideas for this afternoon and tomorrow. We’ve got good pace in the car but we’ve got good competition this weekend. The Ferraris look pretty rapid so we’ve got to be on our best form.”
03:42 AM GMT
Verstappen on this third place
“I tried to give it a go because I also had Oscar behind me pushing. Unfortunately, yeah, I think the last eight laps we just didn’t have the pace to the others. I was just trying to survive out there. I’ll definitely take the P3. We’ll try to do better. In general we just lack a bit of overall pace.”
03:39 AM GMT
Doohan spins at the hairpin
He bumps into one and nearly two of the Saubers there. Clumsy. Lawson with a fighting 14th. His best session in a Red Bull this season. Needs to find some qualifying pace, though. Hopefully that will encourage him for this afternoon.
03:37 AM GMT
Hamilton on the radio
“Great job guys. Yes. Good job mate, well done mate,” he says.
“It was masterclass for tyres management,” comes the response.
03:37 AM GMT
Chinese GP sprint - Classification
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HAM 8pts
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PIA 7pts
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VER 6pts
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RUS 5pts
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LEC 4pts
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TSU 3pts
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ANT 2pts
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NOR 1pt
03:36 AM GMT
LEWIS HAMILTON WINS THE CHINESE GP SPRINT!
What a moment! It’s only a sprint but it’s still a race. Piastri second, Verstappen third and Russell fourth. Leclerc, in the other Ferrari, is fifth.
03:35 AM GMT
FINAL LAP
Hamilton leading by 6.4sec here. Leclerc says his car is undriveable in turn 13 but he is very, very close to Russell at the start of the lap. This battle has given Verstappen breathing room and he should be able to take third place. Norris very close to Antonelli for seventh as they enter the final sector.
Hamilton rounds the hairpin and the final corner...
03:33 AM GMT
Lap 18 of 19 - Hamilton cruising to victory
Replays show Norris coming from a long way back to get Stroll, and potentially a point, at the hairpin. Russell 1.3sec away from Verstappen for third. He might get a chance but he has Leclerc behind for company.
03:31 AM GMT
Lap 17 of 19 - Hamilton leads Piastri by 4.2sec
This bodes well for tomorrow’s race when it comes to tyre wear. Don’t think anyone will be that interested in the soft tyres.
03:30 AM GMT
Lap 16 of 19 - The front tyres on the frontrunners look shot
Norris is now within DRS range of Stroll for P8. Hamilton has extended his lead over Piastri who will probably just have to settle for second here. Two drivers who had poor results last Sunday will pick up a handful of points here.
03:29 AM GMT
Lap 15 of 19 - Piastri into second!
Piastri close at turn one again but doesn’t try a move this time. He has perhaps used that to position himself for the rest of the lap and then try at the end of the back straght, with DRS. But he has a small moment at turn 10 which drops him back again. Hamilton now leads by nearly 2.5sec and is surely heading to victory here...
Piastri gets DRS on the back straight. Moves up the inside and gets the move done against the ailing Red Bull!
Can Piastri chase Hamilton? Only three laps to do it and 2.7sec to find. Unlikely...
03:27 AM GMT
Lap 14 of 19 - Hamilton leads Verstappen and Piastri
Piastri has a look on the outside of turn one at Verstappen but the Dutchman defends hard and fair in the middle of the track. This is helping Hamilton ahead. 1.8sec now he leads by.
“Both of my front tyres are dead,” Verstappen says. Piastri has tended to drop back in the first part of the lap. Sainz has not retired but switched to a new set of soft tyres and is now in last. Norris has gained on Stroll but only 1.4sec now.
Top eight:
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HAM
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VER
-
PIA
-
RUS
-
LEC
-
TSU
-
ANT
-
STR
03:27 AM GMT
Lap 14 of 19 - Hamilton leads Verstappen and Piastri
Piastri has a look on the outside of turn one at Verstappen but the Dutchman defends hard and fair in the middle of the track. This is helping Hamilton ahead. 1.8sec now he leads by.
“Both of my front tyres are dead,” Verstappen says. Piastri has tended to drop back in the first part of the lap. Sainz has not retired but switched to a new set of soft tyres and is now in last. Norris has gained on Stroll but only 1.4sec now.
Top eight:
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HAM
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VER
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PIA
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RUS
-
LEC
-
TSU
-
ANT
-
STR
03:25 AM GMT
Lap 13 of 19 - Piastri closer now
Lap times at the front, and everywhere really, have dropped off into the 1:37s now. Piastri closer than ever and may be able to try a move on Verstappen on the pit straight, where he tends to get a better exit.
Hamilton leads.
03:23 AM GMT
Lap 12 of 19 - Sainz not having a good race
He loses two places at the hairpin and is then told to pit and quite possibly retire from the sprint. A problem?
Hamilton leads Verstappen by 1.6sec but Piastri has fallen a little further back behind Verstappen. 0.8sec. Doesn’t seem to be able to get close enough to the Dutchman to have a look anywhere.
03:22 AM GMT
Lap 11 of 19 - Hamilton pulls away slightly
Verstappen going backwards, relatively. Piastri now within half a second. Norris in ninth showing no signs of progress and is now three seconds behind Stroll. 3.5sec indeed.
Piastri might get a look at Verstappen with DRS into the hairpin. Dunno, maybe not now.
03:20 AM GMT
Lap 10 of 19 - Top eight and gaps
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HAM
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VER +1.5
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PIA +0.8
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RUS +5.0
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LEC +7.1
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TSU +9.2
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ANT +9.9
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STR +11.2
Norris still in ninth. Lawson making progress here, slightly. He loses a bit of his front wing endplate after rubbing up against Bortoleto at the hairpin this time.
03:19 AM GMT
Lap 9 of 19 - Verstappen’s engineer on the radio
“You can play with lines but just don’t let that lead to a net increase in slip,” comes the radio message. Hamilton edges out a little this lap, which will be a relief. Piastri closer to Verstappen than Verstappen Hamilton by the end of the lap...
03:17 AM GMT
Lap 8 of 19 - Norris unhappy
He says his front left is borked and he’s unable to find any pace. Verstappen is closing in on leader Hamilton. Piastri has dropped back a bit from those two, though is 1.2sec behind Verstappen. Still in touch. He lost four tenths in the middle sector.
Verstappen is right on Hamilton’s rear wing now...
03:15 AM GMT
Lap 7 of 19 - Hamilton leads Verstappen by 1.4sec
Piastri is 0.7sec further back. No further action for Lawson and Doohan’s incident.
03:14 AM GMT
Lap 6 of 19 - Piastri nearly within DRS range of Verstappen now
Verstappen’s pace has dropped slightly, which means Hamilton leads him by 1.4sec nearly.
03:13 AM GMT
Lap 5 of 19 - Leclerc under pressure from Tsunoda
Antonelli is not too far behind him, either. Lawon gets Doohan at the hairpin and they touch on the exit. He came from a long way back there. Stewards looking at it. Piastri now the fastest man in the top three, but Russell has good pace too.
03:11 AM GMT
Lap 4 of 19 - Verstappen back within one second of Hamilton
Verstappen marginally the quicker man in the top three bit it is close, a tenth or so in it. Norris not really making any inroads into Stroll.
03:10 AM GMT
Lap 3 of 19 - Piastri has fallen back a bit
He is 1.8sec behind Verstappen now. Replays show Norris’s error was not so much a lock up as simply running wide onto the dirt when he did not need to. He was not fighting for position keenly and was in miles of space, really.
Here’s the top 10:
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HAM
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VER
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PIA
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RUS
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LEC
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TSU
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ANT
-
STR
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NOR
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ALO
03:08 AM GMT
Lap 2 of 19 - Hamilton leads Verstappen by 0.7s
That is the gap at the start of the lap, anyway. He will want to be well out of DRS, now enabled, range soon. The top three have a bit of a gap to the rest of the field. Norris coming back on Stroll but has not been able to try a move yet but the back straight will be the place for that. Problem is he loses a bit of time on it.
Hamilton now 1.118sec clear of Verstappen at the end of the lap.
03:06 AM GMT
THE CHINESE GP SPRINT RACE IS GO!
It’s a very good start from Lewis Hamilton and he does not have to worry about Verstappen because he can pull in front of him directly before the braking zone.
It’s a bad start for Norris who locks up at turn two and then runs wide. Down to ninth already. That’s not good and reminiscent of his dodgy starts last season.
Hamilton leads Verstappen, Piastri, Leclerc, Russell and Tsunoda for the top six.
Work to do with Norris. Russell gets through ahead of Leclerc for fourth.
03:04 AM GMT
Here we go
Verstappen lines up pointing towards Hamilton, fairly aggressively...
03:00 AM GMT
Formation lap is go
Everyone away, Hamilton leading. Verstappen on the front row alongside him. I can’t wait for this one.
03:00 AM GMT
Chinese GP sprint: Starting grid
1. HAM 2. VER
3. PIA 4. LEC
5. RUS 6. NOR
7. ANT 8. TSU
9. ALB 10. STR
11. ALO 12. BEA
13. SAI 14. BOR
15. HAD 16. DOO
17. GAS 18. OCO
19. LAW
PIT LANE: HUL
02:55 AM GMT
Hamilton focusing in on the grid
A victory today would mean a lot. It would only be eight points but would be a significant boost early in the season. It is far from a certainty, though. 19 laps on this track is not easy, especially with Verstappen and the McLarens close behind. Well, one McLaren close behind anyway.
02:50 AM GMT
Christian Horner speaks to Sky Sports
“It’s a little bit of a voyage of discovery. Pirelli have increased the minimum pressures... how that will affect the cars will be interesting. I think it’s going to be quite a bit of management... it’s all about the front left here. It’s going to be an interesting stint.”
02:48 AM GMT
Norris accuses Russell of ‘playing mind games’
Lando Norris has accused British rival George Russell of “trying to play mind games” with him by relentlessly talking up McLaren’s car. But he says he will “not fall for them”, adding that if anything it shows he is inside the Mercedes driver’s head rather than the other way around.
Norris, 25, held off Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to win the season-opening Australian Grand Prix last weekend after he and team-mate Oscar Piastri took a one-two in qualifying, more than 0.3 seconds clear of the field.
02:37 AM GMT
How the teams stack up in qualifying after two sessions
02:33 AM GMT
A good visualisation of how close it was yesterday...
02:31 AM GMT
Qualifying head to heads
We’ve had two qualifying sessions now so this is how it stacks up.
02:06 PM GMT
Final times after sprint qualifying
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Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Ferrari HP 1min 30.849secs
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Max Verstappen (Ned) Red Bull 1:30.867
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Oscar Piastri (Aus) McLaren 1:30.929
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Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari HP 1:31.057
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George Russell (Gbr) Mercedes GP 1:31.169
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Lando Norris (Gbr) McLaren 1:31.393
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Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Ita) Mercedes GP 1:31.738
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Yuki Tsunoda (Jpn) RB 1:31.773
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Alexander Albon (Tha) Atlassian Williams 1:31.852
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Lance Stroll (Can) Aston Martin 1:31.982
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Fernando Alonso (Spa) Aston Martin 1:31.815
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Oliver Bearman (Gbr) Haas F1 1:31.978
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Carlos Sainz Jr. (Spa) Atlassian Williams 1:32.325
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Gabriel Bortoleto (Bra) Kick Sauber 1:32.564
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Isack Hadjar (Fra) RB 1:32.171
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Jack Doohan (Aus) Alpine 1:32.575
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Pierre Gasly (Fra) Alpine 1:32.640
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Esteban Ocon (Fra) Haas F1 1:32.651
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Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Kick Sauber 1:32.675
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Liam Lawson (Nzl) Red Bull 1:32.729,
02:02 PM GMT
Good morning
Welcome to our live coverage for the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race, from the Shanghai International Circuit. I say good morning but from where I am sitting in London it is very much the middle of the night. Still, if you cannot get yourself out of bed for Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari being on pole for the sprint race, then what can you get yourself out of bed for?
After a “disaster” weekend in Melbourne, Hamilton took a surprise pole position for today’s sprint. It was a surprise to him, too. He described himself as “shocked” and “gobsmacked”. Everybody expected the McLarens to be the class of the field again but that was not the case. It was Max Verstappen, in fact, that was Hamilton’s closest rival in yesterday’s session and the two will start on the front row together for the first time in quite a while.
The lead McLaren of Oscar Piastri was third and well within a tenth of a second of Hamilton, but could not quite cross the line fastest. The Australian thought McLaren’s run plan in SQ3 (doing a push lap, a cool down lap and then another push lap) was perhaps the difference as other teams chose to do just one push lap.
Lando Norris, last week’s pole sitter and race winner, made mistakes in both of his SQ3 runs and finished half a second down from Hamilton and will start in sixth. George Russell was fifth for Mercedes, 0.32sec off pole with team-mate Kimi Antonelli in seventh. Yuki Tsunoda was eighth for Racing Bulls, Alexander Albon eighth for Williams and Lance Stroll 10th for Aston Martin. The other Red Bull of Liam Lawson endured another tough session and qualified 20th and last.
On Hamilton’s side, whatever happens in today’s race, this added some much-needed cheer. Nobody expected their woeful lack of pace in Australia to be repeated this weekend but that it happened at all would have been a worry. That is not to say they will win today’s race – I expect McLaren to come back strongly – or even qualify well for the main event later on. But the pace is in there, clearly.
Championship points are awarded for the first eight finishers today, with eight points for the winner and one for the eight-placed person. The race gets under way at 3am GMT and we will be here for all the action and reaction.
