Hamilton wins the Sprint, Piastri P2, Verstappen P3, Norris bins it
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Lewis Hamilton capitalises on his first success with Ferrari, and wins the Sprint race in China, from Oscar Piastri in P2 and Max Verstappen in P3.
As it happened
As they lined up on the grid, Max Verstappen pointed his car toward Lewis Hamilton’s path, to try and gain the edg on the Briton and contain any potential overtake attempt on his position.
The lights went off, Hamilton had a good reaction and was able to cover off Piastri. Charles Leclerc managed to defend from Russell, and tried to attack Oscar Piastri into Turn 3, as Lando Norris went into Turn 5 very compromised and lost two places as his MCL39 got bent out of shape.
Into the hairpin at Turn 14, George Russell moved up a place as he overtook Leclerc on the inside, with the Monegasque sticking to the Mercedes’ Briton’s gearbox throughout the lap.
On lap 3 Hamilton put in the fastest lap and managed to shake Verstappen off DRS range.
On lap 5, the order was the same, with Hamilton leading Verstappen, Piastri, Russell and Leclerc in the top 5 and a very impressive Yuki Tsunoda in P6. The other Red Bull Racing driver did a late lunge on Alpine’s Jack Doohan into the hairpin. However the New Zealander did bang wheels with the Australian, which prompted an investigation from the Stewards into Lawson for causing a collision.
On lap 9, Hamilton’s tyre degradation levels were far above expected which let Verstappen reel him in reducing the gap to 6 tenths, as Piastri fell back out of the Dutchman’s DRS range. The seven-time world champion wasn’t the only one complaining about the tyres, as Norris down in P9 told engineer Will Joseph that he had to drive slowly and even so he was still killing his tyres.
Meanwhile in the back, Gabriel Bortoleto, Isaac Hadjar, Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson were starring an intense fight for P13. The New Zealander made contact with a competitor down the main straight which resulted in the Red Bull Racing driver losing a bit of body work.
At the front, Piastri was also suffering from graining, but Verstappen’s both front tyres did not look to be in good shape, which allowed Hamilton to open up a gap out in front of 1.5 seconds.
On lap 12 Sainz lost two places in one corner as Hadjar made his way through at Turn 4, which Lawson took advantage of as well sneaking up the inside of the Spaniard who immediately bolted for the pits.
On lap 14, Piastri felt brave enough to have a look on the inside of Verstappen into Turn 1, as the Dutchman defended with everything he could to force3 Piastri to go around the outside. Shortly after Verstappen complained to engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, that both of his front tyres were dead.
Sure enough a couple of laps later, Piastri lined up Verstappen for an overtake into Turn 14, and though the Dutchman didn’t make it easy, the battle between the two was always fair. Norris also went up a place as he completed an overtake on Aston Martin driver, Lance Stroll, moving him up to P8 and into the points.