Piastri wins ahead of anxious Norris as Verstappen comes alive in the end

Oscar Piastri wins the Chinese Grand Prix, ahead of Lando Norris and George Russell who rounded off the top three.

As it happened

At the start George Russell got off the line better than Piastri, however the Australian defended hard and well from the Briton’s attacks, as Lando Norris managed to gain the upper hand on the Mercedes driver, taking over P2.

Max Verstappen had a poor start and was jumped by both Ferrari cars, Lewis Hamilton who took over P4 from the Dutchman, and Charles Leclerc who demoted him to P5. However, the Monegasque suffered a snap and had contact with teammate Hamilton and broke the left main plate on his front wing.

Leclerd was then told on the radio that Ferrari expected the downforce loss to be between 20 and 30 points, to which the Monegasque replied, “we can survive.”

After Verstappen reported Leclerc’s broken front wing, Pierre Gasly informed his team that Fernando Alonso’s brakes were on fire. A few moments later on lap 4, the Spaniard had to retire the car claiming he had no brakes.

Yuki Tsunoda and Alex Albon were asked by their team to keep their pace to manage their tyres, to which they both replied negatively.

On lap 9, Leclerc was in Hamilton’s DRS range, but was still unable to attack the Briton. As he felt he had more pace than his teammate he told the pitwall he wanted “plan a,” a potential one-stopper, a suggestion the team shut down due to the estimated traffic.

On lap 10 the pitstop rounds started. and on Lap 13 Yuki Tsunoda pulled off a successful undercut on Andrea Kimi Antonelli as the pair continued their fight from the Sprint the day before, for P7.

On lap 14 Hamilton and Verstappen boxed, with Hulkenberg splitting both rivals on track, only momentarily, though. Since the Dutchman was able to clear the German and move up behind Hamilton, albeit the gap to the Ferrari driver was of nearly 5 seconds.

Piastri and Russell came into the pits on lap 14 as well, in what was expected to be a one-stopper.

Esteban Ocon then performed a daring overtake on Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Down the back straight he was pushed onto the grass but still he kept his foot on the throttle and went up the inside of the Italian driver at Turn 14.

Norris boxed on lap 15 and as he made his way out it was clear it would be tight with Russell, but with the Mercedes driver’s tyres already warmed up, Russell was able to move past Norris and take P2.

On lap 18, Norris put the full might of his MCL39’s pace on display as he executed a firm overtake maneuver, putting his elbows out on the main straight making room for himself on the inside, to which Russell had to react by turning somewhat violently to the left hand side of the track, effectively yielding the position to Norris.

Albon was able to lead the Grand Prix on his birthday, albeit for a short period as both Piastri and Norris rearranged the leading positions to what they looked like before the stops.

Hamilton was then ordered to swap positions with Leclerc, to which the Briton replied with a tentative “when he’s closer, yeah.” The seven-time world champion later added that he “was catching the guys ahead.” However the Ferrari pitwall doubled down on the order and at Turn 1 of lap 21, Hamilton made way for his teammate.

As the second round of pitstops drew near Norris was advised to pick up the pace to cover off a potential undercut or mitigate a poor pitstop. Norris then did not want to push only to encounter Piastri’s turbulent air and grain his tyres. McLaren then asked Oscar to push as well.

After the halfway mark, Verstappen, who’d hardly play any role in the race, saw a bit of pace returned to his RB21, a fact his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, amusingly quipped to “better late than never.’

On lap 40 Oliver Bearman brought his Haas VF-25 into the top ten and into the points driving a strong attacking race completing overtakes on Gabriel Bortoleto, Liam Lawson, Jack Doohan and Pierre Gasly among others.

Verstappen then started reeling Leclerc, but not at the rate necessary to create an attack opportunity.

Norris started to struggle at the dying phase of the race. His tyres were graining and he complained his brake pad was changing, however this was not so as his engineer Will Joseph clarified that it was only his brake pedal going long. Anxiety seemed to be creeping in for the McLaren driver.

Yuki Tsunoda suffered a freak break on his front wing main plate as he made his way down the straight, forcing the Japanese driver to take an additional pitstop to change his front wing.

Norris was advised not to brake hard since, his braking issues could potentially result in a DNF. ‘I’d rather finish second, than not finish at all’ was essentially Joseph’s message to his driver.

Jack Doohan started to drive erratically trying to defend from Isack Hadjar, locking up and forcing the French Algerian off the track at Turn 14, and then moving late. The Stewards investigated the move that saw both rookied go off and decided to penalise Doohan with ten seconds.

Charles Leclerc then saw his fourth place under threat as Verstappen reeled the Monegasque in, getting within the DRS range of the Ferrari car in the last 5 laps and overtaking him for P4.