Grand Prix thread LENOVO CHINESE GRAND PRIX 2024 - New Sprint Format

56 laps of the 5.451-kilometre Shanghai International Circuit

19th April Practice 1 04:30 - 05:30
Parc Ferme 1 starts before Sprint Quali
19th April Sprint Qualifying 08:30 - 09:14
20th April Sprint 04:00 - 05:00
Parc Ferme 2 starts before Race Quali
20th April Qualifying 08:00 - 09:00
21st April Race 08:00 - 10:00

All times are UK times

Poll closes before Quali - Saturday!!!!!

 

Red Flag. Small grass fire at turn 7.
Could be sparks from the under car plank.

 

Thar`s a surprise !
Stroll quickest in FP1.

Track is still rubbering up and the Aston has maybe only a thimble full of fuel.

 

I thought I was going to throw up when I read that

 

That was good fun.
Really thought Lewis was going to make pole.

 

No need to worry ,it didn`t last long.

 

I normally hate it when Drivers change their Helmet Designs .

However I will make an exception in Alex’s case .

 

Well Hamilton gave me hope for 8 laps. Now hope is gone.

 

We gotta scrap DRS.

 

I sometimes feel sorry for Lewis and then I change my mind when I hear him speak in the interviews and remember what an absolute cringe bag he is.

“Team LH China”

Give me strength.

Such an actor.

Anyways, back to the racing. Ferrari look like they could get Perez tomorrow. McLaren held back by their low speed traction as expected.

Alonso doing unbelievable things again in a car that isn’t strong enough.

Max doing Max things- just completely in tune with that car.

Be interesting if it’s warmer temps for the race to test tyre deg.

 

Well thst is thst.

obviously I didn't get up for thst sprint bit I caught the result and q3.

8 people hit 2nd on the grid at the end with perez taking it sadly.

the sprint suggest this race will be an absolute bore fest with red bulls just driving away conserving tyres.

Hamilton nowhere.

Ferrari nowhere really.

 

Not looking great for tomorrow. McLarens and Ferrari’s will probably invert due to tyre wear and other than that it’s hard to see where the interest will come from.

From a season perspective, it’s ominous that for the third season in a row it does somewhat look like after a few races acclimatising, Verstappen has synced up with the new car at which point he goes from looking a bit better than everyone else, to a lot better than everyone else and reduces my belief that the upcoming Ferrari upgrades will bridge the gap sufficiently.

The sprint at least was fun for a few laps with Alonso, Ferraris, Perez and Norris all scrapping for a few laps - if we get lucky, maybe there will be something similar tomorrow.

Outside of the racing, I can’t quite decide whether I like/prefer the Rosberg mix of driver experience and Fanboi-ism in the commentary box compared to some of the alternatives. It seems to constantly veer between refreshing and irritating for me.

 

As soon as Ferrari decided to completely change Leclerc’s set up just before qualifying, you knew it wasn’t going to work (despite him having shown pace prior to that this weekend). Hopefully they’re thinking race set up, because it lost him a ton of time in qualifying trim.

Aston have put in a complaint about Sainz being allowed to continue after causing the red flag.

 

what's more ominous is perez is going to get fairly easy 2nd places as well.

 

Long corners and long straights, make this track very much RedBull country. If the Ferrari upgrades deliver close to what they expect, you’d think they can get up to Sergio’s level or ahead at a lot of circuits.

 

Aston should have a 5 place grid pentaly applied to both drivers for spurious amd time wasting protest at sainz recovering his car himself.

how can you claim his car stopped on track when in fact it merely drove off again under its own steam..something we see on a regular basis.

Aston lose all my "respect" as a result. not that any daddy boy ****ebag driver and ****head daddy merits any respect in the first place

 

Couldn`t agree more.
We must have seen this lots of times before where a car has gone off the track and simply drove back on.
I mean to say, he wasn`t assisted by any marshalls,so they have not touched the car and too be honest,I don`t think the qualy session needed to be Red Flagged.

not that any daddy boy ****ebag driver and ****head daddy merits any respect in the first place

 

This really has been a dreadful race , irrespective of safety cars etc.

 

As expected, it was all a little bit 2023 today. Lando did unexpectedly well and ultimately ran roughly on the pace I expected the Ferraris to have - unfortunately the Ferraris were slower than expected, which meant we were robbed of what might have been quite an exciting battle for 2nd.

Some pretty odd stewarding decisions over this weekend I felt, penalty points for Fernando in the sprint, the Hulkenberg/Sargeant thing, nothing for Alpine for an unsafe release (yet) and even the size of the Stroll penalty all seemed somewhat bizarre.

Going back to the Lawrence Stroll hate - is that all because he’s sponsoring his Son into a car? What I see is a committed and ambitious racer. More significantly, the people at Honda are good judges of these things and they seem to agree?

 

Oh and a PSA for all those who I anticipate might be a bit down today. Don’t forget the next race is 17th May at Imola (definitely not 3rd May in Miami)