The Sprint Qualifying of the Chinese GP proved to be very eventful. Between fire and water, literally, nothing was missing to make an already difficult qualification even more complicated due to the only free practice session held after five years of absence from the Shanghai circuit. In the end, Lando Norris came out on top. He performed very well on the wet asphalt and rose above the rest, including the two old lions – Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. Of course, the pecking order is still unclear. Red Bull was the fastest until the track was dry.
SQ1
Sprint Qualifying began under grey skies but in dry conditions. Cooler temperatures compared to the only free practice session held, with only 29° degrees for the asphalt. There was immediately a lot of traffic on the track, also because the threat of rain was strong and Oscar Piastri immediately reported a few drops on his helmet. All the drivers took to the track with medium tyres and made multiple consecutive attempts.
Red Bull was immediately in the spotlight, with Sergio Perez taking the lead (1’36″110) after the first round of flying laps, with three-tenths of a second over Max Verstappen. Lando Norris then inserted himself between the two and placed his McLaren 2-tenths behind the Mexican. The ending was experienced with tension especially by those who were playing for the next round. Those eliminated were:
Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon, Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda (negative surprise) and Logan Sargeant. As the chequered flag well, there was a small delay as a fire emerged on the grass – as already happened in FP1 .
SQ2
The flames at the end of SQ1 caused a delay of a few minutes in the program, which had important consequences. All the cars left the garage, queuing and waiting to execute. Rain arrived promptly as the riders finished the first attempt, giving more than one surprise in the result. Max Verstappen achieved the best time (1’35″606), one-tenth faster than Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez. George Russell, however, was the first to be excluded by just 38 thousandths.
The two Kick Saubers sensationally enter SQ3, to the delight of the Shanghai public who celebrate Guanyu Zhou’s feat. In addition to Russell, Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll were eliminated.
Q3
Extremely difficult conditions for the last part of qualifying: the track is wet with intermediate tyres and very slippery. The first to pay the consequences was Charles Leclerc.
The Monegasque lost control of his Ferrari and hit the barriers, damaging the front wing and having to return to the pits to replace it. Keeping the cars on the track is a challenge and the times increase considerably. The quickest to adapt was Sergio Perez, who clearly achieved the best performance after the first flying lap, with a time of over 2 minutes.
The race direction’s decision to cancel and reinstate Norris’ cancelled lap created confusion. In the end, the best performance goes to Lando Norris (1’57″940), who first sees his position taken away and then returned by the stewards.
Norris finished with comfortable margins, 1.2 seconds ahead of Hamilton and almost 2 seconds clear of Alonso. Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc followed.
