Max Verstappen Wins the China GP Sprint and Secures Pole for Sunday

Max Verstappen started the day off in record setting fashion securing the team’s 100th pole position. 37 having been claimed by the Dutchman, as well as 44 by Sebastian Vettel, 13 by Mark Webber, 3 by Perez and 3 by Daniel Ricciardo. Behind Verstappen was his teammate Sergio Perez in P2 and Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso. Commenting on th session, Verstappen said: “Before I jumped in the car Christian [Horner, Red Bull team boss] told me if you get pole today it could be number 100 for the team, so I was like, ‘Okay, that’s nice, I’ll try and give it a good go’.

Of course that’s an incredible achievement for the whole team. Also a big contribution from Seb back in the day! But it’s fantastic also to have the one-two in qualifying, it showed that the car is again working really well. From my side it’s been a really good start to the year and I feel probably very confident in qualifying, even compared to last year. It’s just a shame of course that we retired in Melbourne otherwise I think we could have had already a very strong lead, but overall it’s still a great start.”

Hamilton Surges to the P2 in Sprint but Drops in Q1

Lewis Hamilton seemingly found the pace he needed to bring it to Verstappen this weekend. Despite falling short after the sprint Hamilton looked as though he’d be competing at the front. Unfortunately come qualifying for the grand prix Hamilton made a surprise Q1 exit. After making a mistake in the hairpin during the first session Hamilton finished in P18. His work will be cut out for him on Sunday if he is to compete for a top 5 finish.

Hamilton was disappointed with the session, “To be sat on the front-row for the Sprint was a great feeling,” he said. Racing into turn one and taking the lead reminded me of what I love so much about this sport! It was a challenging race but to get second was great. 

We knew Qualifying would be much more tough this afternoon though. I made some sizeable set-up changes after the Sprint to try and improve the car in the slow speed turns. It wasn’t too bad in some corners, but I struggled elsewhere. It was challenging to get the rear tires to stop into turn 14 and that’s where I locked up on my final lap. If I hadn’t had that, I would have made it through to Q2. I’ll be giving it my best shot tomorrow. We can still have some fun even if we are starting from P18.“

Aston Martin Bounces Back

When asked about his disappointing finish in the sprint race Alonso stated, “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how far [ahead] Checo is. But yeah, Sector 1, I had a moment in Turn 1 and 2, I nearly lost the car. And then I said, ‘Okay, I keep going or I abort the lap?’, you know, because I lost like two tenths in two corners. But yeah, we didn’t give up. We kept pushing all through the lap. Yeah, we said a good lap time. I think the car did improve since this morning. We made a few set-up changes. Let’s see tomorrow if we can translate that into points.”

Of note Oscar Piastri had a slight off but was able to recover and made it to Q3 finishing P5 with teammate Lando Norris starting ahead in P4.

Grand Prix Qualifying Results

Sprint Race Results