Category: Formula 1

The Spaniard was locked in a tight fight with the Ferraris for third place in the closing stages of the Shanghai sprint event, as he battled rapidly degrading tyres.

But as the pair swapped positions back and forth, they clashed at Turn 9 two laps from home in an incident that earned Alonso a puncture – which forced him into the pits for fresh tyres before he eventually retired.

The stewards summoned both drivers ahead of qualifying to discuss the matter, and determined that Alonso had been at fault as he had the opportunity to avoid a collision.

Although Alonso retired, the stewards said it was standard practice to add 10-seconds to his elapsed time – an anomaly in the regulations that it has urged the FIA to look at.

A statement issued by the stewards said: “As per the guidelines on driving standards, which was agreed with the teams, an infringement of this nature required that a baseline penalty of 10 seconds was to be added to the time of a car that caused a collision.

“Article 54.3 of the Sporting Regulations states if the 10 second penalty is imposed after the end of a sprint session, then 10 seconds will be added to the elapsed time of the driver concerned. We accordingly added 10 seconds to the elapsed time of Car 14.

“As an aside to the FIA, we note that the language in the regulations as to when a car has retired and the resultant consequences on penalties that may be imposed or served, especially when that car is otherwise classified, is somewhat unclear and we would recommend that the FIA considers making the necessary amendments to bring greater clarity to this issue.”

Speaking to Spanish channel DAZN after the sprint, Alonso reckoned that Sainz had not left him as much room in their battle as he had offered his compatriot earlier around the lap.

“Turn 7, I think we were evenly matched, then in Turn 8 I tried to go to the outside,” said Alonso. “But he opened the line to not leave me room, so in Turn 9 I did the same thing he did in Turn 8.

“I tried to go to the inside to not leave him room on the line, but in Turn 8 I opened up so we didn’t touch, and in Turn 9 he didn’t open up. So we touched.”

Alonso’s three penalty points means he has now a total of six points for the previous 12 months period.

Norris had started from the front after a brilliant showing in Friday’s wet qualifying session, but it all went wrong at Turn 1 of the sprint race after he came off worse in a side-by-side tussle with Lewis Hamilton.

Having lost ground away from the grid, he found himself on the dirt on the outside of the long right- hand first corner. And, after instantly losing grip, he ran wide and dropped down the order.

While he was able to recover and finished sixth, Norris clearly felt he should have done better.

Speaking over the team radio after the chequered flag, Norris said: “Yeah, I f***** up Turn 1, my bad. I just completely lost the car, so apologies. Should have scored some more points than that.”

But McLaren boss Andrea Stella moved quickly to say that rather than the driver apologising, it was the team that should be saying sorry for not giving him a car that was better able to fight for wins.

“Certainly he doesn’t need to apologise because we need his apologies [for the car],” Stella told Sky Sports F1.

“He knows that he could have done better, but we appreciate the maximum effort and we work as a team. And also this just gives a sense of the kind of person he is.

“He feels, I’m sure, like ‘I’ve disappointed the team.’ [But] don’t worry, Lando, you haven’t disappointed the team. We need to give you a better car and then all things will become much easier, rather than always being on the limit to bring on some important results.

“So it’s more up to us, and the men and women at McLaren are working hard to improve the car.”

While Norris would likely have had a chance to fight Hamilton for the lead early on if he had had a better first corner, he doubted that he would have ultimately been able to stave off eventual winner Max Verstappen.

“Yeah, no chance,” he said when asked if the win had been on the table. “Maybe it could have been one or two positions higher. But that was it.

“I think the Mercedes had very good pace today. George [Russell] was catching us quite quickly and Lewis had good pace as well. And then the Red Bulls and even the Ferraris, honestly.

“I was managing to survive just because of the DRS. If I didn’t have DRS, I was long gone behind all of them. Our race pace was pretty shocking today, which we kind of expected with just how the track is, and just our limitations we have on the car.”

Norris had started Saturday’s sprint event in Shanghai from pole position but did not get away at the lights as well as fellow front-row starter Hamilton – who got inside him on the entry to the first corner.

Hamilton hugged the inside line throughout the long right-hander, while Norris tried to hang it around the outside before he lost grip off-line and ran off the circuit – dropping down the order.

Considering how strong McLaren’s pace had been throughout Friday, Hamilton thinks Norris should have been smarter to give up the spot and slot into second, before biding his time to regain the lead later on.

Speaking about the Turn 1 battle with Norris, Hamilton said: “I obviously got a great start and had the inside line.

“He tried to hold the outside line and was just pushing to the maximum. I used everything to try to hold onto the position, and eventually, I think he got on the dirt on the outside.

“There is a point where, if you go a little bit too far, there is no grip out there.

“In that scenario, he should have just conceded and just parked up behind me. Probably would have had the pace to overtake me [later].”

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Norris being out of the picture left Hamilton clear in front, and he was able to eke out a small advantage over Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso in the early stages of the race.

And although world champion Max Verstappen recovered from some difficult early laps to surge forward and snatch the lead later to secure another victory, Hamilton was hugely buoyed by his best result of the season so far as he took second place.

“I forgot what it felt to be up ahead and was grateful for the moment,” explained the Mercedes driver.

“It was very fortunate with the rain yesterday, to be able to capitalise on that, as our pace [in the dry] is not strong enough to be qualifying up as high as that.

“But I made the most of it, had a great start, and then managed to hold off Fernando for a while and build a gap.

“Honestly, I found out a lot about the car, which has at least given us a direction of what to improve. I am so happy to be back here.”

In a DRS train behind Fernando Alonso, the battle erupted when Sainz attacked the Aston Martin driver around the outside of Turn 7, which invited both Serigo Perez and Charles Leclerc into the fight.

After Alonso picked up a puncture in contact with Sainz, as the pair touched in Turn 7 before both going wide following further contact at Turn 9 to allow Perez to fly past, there was an all-Ferrari incident at the Turn 14 hairpin when the pair appeared to clash.

Both Ferraris made it to the finish, with Leclerc fourth and Sainz fifth, and the Monegasque made his feelings clear over team radio straight after the chequered flag.

“Let’s speak. We’re fighting more… he’s fighting me more than the others,” Leclerc said.

After the Chinese GP sprint, when asked if he felt Sainz’s defending against him crossed a line, Leclerc told Sky Sports F1: “I think so but to be honest I have also crossed a line myself in the past and when this happens we normally have a discussion, we clear the air.

“We went through that in the past and it went really well so I have no worries that it will also be the case this weekend. But he went a bit over the limit.

“Contact between us two being in a different race situation, because I had saved quite a bit with the tyres and I had a good pace at the end, so it is a bit of a shame that we lost that gap to Perez and couldn’t overtake him.

“P4, it could’ve been P3, one point, you can always do better but we will focus on this afternoon because this will be the game-changer, having a good qualifying which hasn’t been the case for me in the last few races.”

Sainz said he was happy to apologise if his defending against Leclerc was considered too aggressive as he explained his earlier fight with Alonso contributed to the issue.

“Behind Fernando, I did a really good move around the outside of Turn 7 and from then on he decided to be a bit all or nothing into me into Turn 9 which cost us both in the race,” Sainz told Sky Sports F1.

“I picked up damage and a lot of dirt on my tyres from that optimistic move. From there on I was sliding around with damage to the car and dirt on my tyres.

“I was doing everything I could to defend and sliding around so maybe had a bit of a moment with Charles but I apologise if I did something over the limit. But we were all racing really hard today and I was trying my best to keep it under control.”

Giving his take on the Sainz battle, Alonso added: “It was tough racing and a couple of corners parallel to each other, wheel to wheel battle, and at the end, someone has to give up.

“I gave up the racing line at Turn 8 to avoid contact and he didn’t give up in Turn 9 and we didn’t avoid the contact.

“But in the sprint race there are only a few points in play and our natural position is seventh or eighth so it is not many points. It is a shame not to finish but we lost not too many points.”

Sainz and Alonso have been placed under investigation for their Turn 7 clash which will be reviewed by the stewards ahead of Chinese GP qualifying.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton grabbed the lead at the start, when pole-winner Lando Norris (McLaren) was slow away from the startline. After battling with Hamilton through Turn 1, Norris slid wide and off the track, tumbling a further five places.

Promoted to third, Verstappen bided his time early on and then cruised past Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Hamilton to notch yet another F1 victory.

F1 Chinese GP sprint results

2024 F1 Chinese GP sprint race report

Poleman Norris briefly led the charge to the opening corner, but he couldn’t stop the fast-starting Hamilton from grabbing the lead. Norris ran wide trying to counter, which allowed Alonso, Verstappen, Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), Sergio Perez (Red Bull) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) to also get ahead of him.

Hamilton led the opening lap from Alonso, Verstappen, Sainz, Perez, Leclerc, Norris – who lost six places in total – and Piastri.

Hamilton pulled clear of Alonso’s DRS range by lap four, with Verstappen complaining of a flat battery early on in third. Sainz pressured him in the early stages before dropping back towards Perez.

Verstappen DRS-ed past Alonso for second position on lap seven and immediately chased after Hamilton.

Hamilton locked up into the hairpin on the following tour, which allowed Verstappen to quickly close in. He passed him a lap later at the same spot.

Verstappen then romped away to a dominant victory, while Perez toiled to pass Sainz. Leclerc then attacked Perez time and again into the hairpin.

Sainz barged his way past Alonso but his fellow Spaniard retaliated, gifting Perez third. The Ferraris touched at the hairpin before Leclerc passed Sainz at Turn 2, after Alonso was forced to pit with a puncture – and was eventually forced to retire due to damage.

Hamilton fell over 12s behind Verstappen, but kept ahead of Perez to cross the line in second.

Leclerc finished fourth but was audibly angry with Sainz, while Norris chased Sainz home for sixth, ahead of Piastri and George Russell (Mercedes), who started on softs.

F1 Chinese GP sprint fastest laps

The championship leader appeared out of sorts in the opening flurry of laps as he struggled to charge his battery with the selected hybrid settings, but a series of changes on his steering wheel appeared to rectify the issue.

With greater forward momentum, Verstappen pulled himself out of third with a simple DRS overtake on the second-placed Fernando Alonso, and then pounced on a Turn 14 lock-up from Hamilton close in for victory.

Polesitter Lando Norris had suffered a poorer start in comparison to Hamilton and, once the first corner began to approach, the Mercedes driver was level alongside the McLaren.

Norris attempted to hang his car around the outside as the circuit coiled into the long right-hander at the start of the lap, but Hamilton kept his car in the middle of the road at the switching point to the left-handed Turn 3. This left Norris out of road, where he ultimately dropped to seventh.

After emerging with the lead, Hamilton started to gap Alonso and built a healthy 1.4-second buffer by the time the Spaniard came under attack from a Verstappen with renewed vigour.

The seas appeared to part for Verstappen as the Aston Martin driver did not fight the Red Bull driver with DRS, and a lap later Hamilton snatched at his left-front tyre at Turn 14 to lose time.

This gave Verstappen a slam-dunk opportunity to pass for the lead on the ninth lap, which he duly took and waltzed off into the distance by gapping Hamilton at the rate of more than a second per lap. At the flag, Verstappen claimed victory by 13 seconds.

Hamilton remained unchallenged for second, while Sergio Perez snatched third after winning out in a thrilling scrap between himself, Alonso, and the two Ferraris.

Alonso had started to drop back after initially clinging on to Hamilton, slowly looming larger in Carlos Sainz’s vision as the Ferrari driver had the edge on pace over the second half. The pressure started to ratchet up between the two Spanish drivers and Sainz started to throw a few barbs Alonso’s way, but the Aston Martin remained in front.

Perez and Charles Leclerc also joined the fray and, when Alonso and Sainz went wheel to wheel through Turns 7 and 8 with contact, Perez took full advantage of the situation and stole past at the following corner.

Third place was sealed when the Ferraris fought with each other rather than attempt to re-pass Perez, with Leclerc being shown the door on more than one occasion before eventually clearing Sainz for fourth. In the meantime, Alonso had dropped out of the race with a puncture after his contact with Sainz.

Norris, after his first-lap wide moment, was in touching distance with the pack in contention for third but could not work his way into the thick of that battle, but at least was well ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri in seventh place. George Russell completed the top eight with a gamble on soft tyres, finishing 6.2s clear of home hero Zhou Guanyu to collect the final point on offer.

F1 Chinese GP – Sprint results:

The FIA began a detailed probe on Friday night after two separate fires on the same area of grass inside Turn 7 disrupted running on the opening day of track action.

First practice for the Chinese Grand Prix on Friday morning had to be red-flagged after a blaze erupted on the grass before the same section later caught fire at the end of the first session of sprint qualifying.

While there was no red flag this time, because session running had already ended, it did trigger a delay to the start of SQ2.

The FIA sent personnel to the area on Friday evening to conduct an analysis of what was causing the problems, but there has been no firm conclusion.

While it seems certain that flying sparks from F1 cars are being thrown into the grass, triggering the fires, what isn’t known is what is causing things to burn so much.

It is understood that there is no sign of there being a flammable material or chemicals on the grass – which could perhaps have been discarded there in the build up to the weekend.

There have been theories about the fires being fuelled by methane gas seeping up through the ground and then getting ignited.

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The Shanghai circuit is built on a swamp, which could be a cause of a build-up of gas. There are also understood to be various pipes that run underneath the venue too, so it could be that one has cracked.

However, the FIA inspections did not trigger any obvious evidence of gas being present, further adding to the mystery over what is happening.

But while there are no answers, the FIA has taken measures to ensure that the fire problem does not cause trouble if it repeats itself again.

A short statement from the FIA said the grass had been watered down and extra precautions taken with fire vehicles in attendance.

“Although we are still uncertain why grass fires occurred in yesterday’s sessions, we are taking pre-emptive measures ahead of today’s track activities,” said the statement.

“We will be watering the grass in the affected areas and will have an emergency fire response team on standby at Turn 7.”

With so little practice running before parc ferme conditions beginning for sprint qualifying and the sprint itself, it is all too easy to get lost with the impact of any developments.

This is why, for example, Aston Martin elected to fast-track its recent upgrade package to Japan because it did not want it rolled out in China nor Miami.

But Haas elected to buck that trend this weekend in Shanghai as it brings its first big upgrade of the season – part of a wider development programme that will roll out over the next few months.

 And considering the squad’s famous Austin update late year, that did not produce the progress hoped for at a sprint, the fact that the American-owned squad has brought a change of parts this time out speaks volumes for the optimism it must have about its work.

With back-to-back comparisons not possible until Imola (given that Miami will also feature the sprint format), it has gone all-in on the steps guaranteeing progress.

Looking at the upgrades in detail, while there are a number of changes being made, none of these are new concepts that could upset the apple cart. Instead, subtle fine-tuning has been applied to solutions that have already appeared on the car this season.

Haas VF-24 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Haas VF-24 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

This starts with the floor fences, which have been optimised in conjunction with the tweaks made to the floor and edge wing downstream, in order to increase their overall yield.

The front corner of the floor provides an intersection with the tail section of the floor strakes which has been modified as part of the update and has allowed a more generous pitch to be added to the curved and straked edge wing behind.

Haas VF-24 wing mirror comparison

Photo by: Uncredited

The main mirror body has also been reprofiled in a bid to improve its aerodynamic efficiency, with the new assembly elongated to reduce its height. This has an impact on the wake turbulence that it generates and therefore provides better flow to the sidepod bodywork downstream.

At the rear of the car, there are changes to the cooling layout, as the rear outlet has been shrunken, whilst the cooling louvres on the size of the engine cover have been increased in size to counteract this.

Working in tandem to offset each other will help to improve aerodynamic efficiency at the rear of the car, without having a detrimental impact on rejecting the heat being created by the power unit and ancillaries under the cover.

Haas VF-24 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Haas VF-24 rear cooling outlet comparison

Photo by: Uncredited

The rear brake duct winglets have also been tweaked on the VF-24 in a bid to leverage the local flow structures and increase local load.

Haas is also expected to keep up the pressure on its rivals in Miami, as more parts are scheduled to arrive to help boost the performance of the VF-24.

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A home race for many of the F1 drivers, Monaco is like nothing else on the F1 calendar. With impossibly narrow streets, incredibly high-speed corners, cars flying past pools, yachts and luxury restaurants, Monaco provides thrill and excitement like no other location.

It has been running since 1929 – so this will be the 95th year since the first event – and it is part of motorsport’s ‘Triple Crown’ alongside the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans as one of the three must-win races – all must-see events for motorsport fans.

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team driver Nico Hulkenberg said: “It is one of my favourites. We’re travelling to many special places like Miami, Melbourne, Las Vegas, Singapore, but the rodeo ride in Monte Carlo is just another level of intensity and a huge challenge.”

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Three-time F1 world champion Lauda survived the crash at the Nurburgring, even though his crash helmet was torn from his head during the brutal head-on impact with the barrier, before his stricken Ferrari 312T2 was then rammed by Brett Lunger’s Surtees.

Four of his fellow drivers assisted in pulling Lauda from his burning car, which crashed on the second lap at the Bergwerk section of the track.

Before the race, Lauda had attempted to arrange a driver boycott of the event’s 14.2-mile Nordschleife track due to its poor safety standards, a lack of doctors and medical helicopters, as well as a wet weather forecast on raceday. But he failed to achieve this by one vote.

Despite suffering severe burns and respiratory damage, Lauda returned to racing at the Italian GP, a mere 40 days after the accident. He qualified in fifth place and finished fourth in the 52-lap race.

The helmet will be auctioned by Bonhams|Cars Automobilia Department at the Miami GP on Saturday 4 May, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Lauda family’s chosen charity UNICEF.

Lauda died in 2019, having gone on to run three airlines and manage several F1 teams – including Ferrari, Jaguar and Mercedes.

“We are delighted that our father’s legacy continues to provide help and assistance to those in most need,” said Lukas Lauda, Niki’s son, on behalf of the family.

“The challenges faced by UNICEF in providing humanitarian aid to children worldwide are enormous; if we can make a small contribution towards improving opportunities for others, we are delighted to do so.”

The burnt helmet of Niki Lauda, Ferrari after his accident

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Since 1976, the helmet has been privately held in notable car and F1 memorabilia collections. The helmet will be on display in the Bonhams|Cars preview tent at the Miami International Autodrome across the race weekend.

James Garguilo, Bonhams|Cars automobilia specialist, added: “We are privileged to present this historically significant helmet, as a testament to Niki Lauda’s legacy as a driver and as a champion for driver safety.

“His unyielding determination and sheer courage altered the trajectory of racing history.”

Despite his heroic comeback, Lauda was pipped to the world title in 1976 by James Hunt, a story that was retold in Ron Howard’s 2013 movie, Rush.

Lauda went on to win his second title for Ferrari in 1977 and his third, with McLaren, in 1984.

The auction will take place directly on the track in front of the podium on the south side of the Miami International Autodrome on 4 May for invited guests as well as Bonhams|Cars clients and car collectors.

Approximately 25 collector cars will be driven on to the race track for the auction and will be showcased around the Miami Campus during the weekend for race-going fans to view.

Other race-worn F1 helmets of Gilles Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Jean Alesi, Gerhard Berger and Eddie Irvine will also be auctioned.