Max Verstappen mastered two safety car restarts and a long final stint on hard tires to ace the Chinese Grand Prix.
Verstappen was rapid off the line, taking the first turn without dispute and sprinting to a 6s lead in the first six laps of the race to make clear he was in no mood to be challenged.
The Dutchman ceded the lead only during the pit stop windows, and the only moments he lacked total control was during a bizarre set of back-to-back safety car interventions just before the halfway mark of the 56-lap grand prix.
The first was a delayed call from race control after Valtteri Bottas stopped on track with smoke billowing from the rear of his Sauber. Race director Niles Wittich was late in triggering the virtual safety car despite Bottas climbing from his car in the exposed run-off at the end of the straight leading into Turn 11.
When marshals were unable to wheel the car away without the aid of a recovery vehicle, the full safety car was called, forcing Verstappen and most other drivers onto the hard tire with 33 laps still to go.
The difficulty of the long final stint was eased by a second caution triggered almost immediately upon the end of the first for a pair of messy crashes. The first came before the resumption, when Lance Stroll clumsily rear-ended Daniel Ricciardo as the field prepared to restart heading into the turn 14 hairpin.
Ricciardo was catapulted momentarily airborne and into the back of Oscar Piastri. The RB car was too severely damaged to continue the race, while Stroll was able to pit for repairs and continue.
RB’s day went from bad to worse only a few seconds later, when Kevin Magnussen tagged Yuki Tsunoda in a botched passing attempt into Turn 6, understeering into his rival. The contact broke Tsunoda’s rear-right corner and forced the Japanese driver to retire on the spot.
Both Stroll and Magnussen were penalized 10s for their errors.
When Verstappen was eventually allowed to resume the grand prix, he was faultless in the lead, eking out a 13.7s advantage to the checkered flag for an easy fourth win of the season.
“It felt amazing,” he said. “All weekend I think we were incredibly quick.
“The car was basically on rails, and I could do whatever I wanted to do with it. These weekends are incredible to feel. To achieve what we have this weekend is fantastic.”
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Lando Norris was a superb second after an early decision to switch to a one-stop strategy. The Briton capitalized on the Bottas VSC to make a cheap pit stop that elevated him to net second, which he deftly held through to the end of the race.
“I’m very happy for the whole team,” he said. “It just worked out today. I don’t know why, I wasn’t really expecting it.
“I could manage the tires a lot, I could just push, the car felt great and I felt comfortable. Good day, good points and another podium, so I’m very happy.”
Sergio Perez was surprisingly inert in his pursuit of Norris in the second half of the race. The Mexican dropped to fourth in the pit lane after double stacking behind Verstappen during the safety car, but after making quick work of Charles Leclerc for third, he was powerless to reel in Norris.
“Once you start fighting like that in the early laps [of a stint], the life of the tires goes off dramatically,” he explained. “At least we managed to get onto the podium.
“We didn’t read the conditions as perfectly as we could. Overall I think it was a strong weekend, and we understand the reasons why the race pace was a little bit down.”
Leclerc was a comfortable fourth after identifying the opportunity to make just one stop early in the race. He was backed up by teammate Carlos Sainz, who had to heavily manage his pace to make it to the end of the race after making his sole pit stop before any of the safety car interventions, leaving him exposed to George Russell late.
Fresh tires weren’t enough for Russell to overcome the Mercedes car’s troubles with the Shanghai circuit, however, and in the final 15 laps he had to manage his pace to guard against a fast-finishing Fernando Alonso.
Alonso had been running fifth after the safety cars but was stuck on the soft tire, necessitating another stop to make it to the finish. A fresh set of mediums fitted at the end of lap 43 dropped him to 12th, but an aggressive charge back into the points ended with him in seventh and just 4.6s behind Russell.
Piastri struggled with tire degradation in the first half of the race and diffuser damage after the Stroll-initiated crash in the second, leaving him to limp home to eighth.
Lewis Hamilton gained nine places on his 18th-place grid spot after capitalizing on the mid-race interventions to finish ninth ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, who scored the final point for Haas.
Esteban Ocon finished 11th ahead of Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly and Zhou Guanyu, while the penalized Magnussen, Sargeant — who was punished for passing Hulkenberg after the second safety car line during the safety car period — and Stroll finishing at the back of the pack.
