Papayas On Top!

 CHINESE GRAND PRIX 2025

photo credit: theguardian.com

Just a chill guy!

Oscar Piastri wins the second round of the F1 calendar which makes it 2/2 won for McLaren this season. He led the race from start to end showing how utter dominant the car is with him and Lando being miles ahead of the pack for most of the race. 

Lando Norris finished 2nd to complete the 50th 1-2 finish for McLaren as a constructor. But the win was not without some issues. Lando in the closing stage of the race faced an issue, with his brake pedal going long which was quite detrimental which made him lose immense amount of time and at the end he only finished 1.5 seconds ahead of George Russell losing almost 5 seconds to him on the last lap itself. 

Overall, McLaren were the fastest car throughout the race, miles ahead of their competition. 

Ferrari were the other talking point of the race. Throughout the race they lacked pace with Hamilton not being able to keep up with his teammate who lacked his front wing endplate. Even Hamilton swapping positions with Leclerc was of no use as he could not catch George Russell and in the closing stages got overtaken by Max Verstappen.

But the main talking point is the DISQUALICATION of both Ferrari cars after the race. Charles Leclerc for his car being below minimum weight and Hamilton due to having excess wear on the skid block by the tiniest of margins. It is somewhat a repeat of Austin 2023 when both Hamilton and Leclerc had been disqualified. A disastrous weekend for Ferrari.

The only good takeaway they had from the weekend was Hamilton's first sprint win with the Scuderia which was also the first sprint win for the team as a whole.

Mercedes as a team extracted as much as they could from their cars with them ending up in P6 and P3. George Russell was the unforeseen podium in the race as no one expected a Mercedes to be quick enough to fend off both the Ferrari's and Red Bull of Max Verstappen. He drove one of the most brilliant drives of his career extracting the maximum potential of his car. Kimi Antonelli finished P6 mainly due to Ferrari's being disqualified but at the end of the day he drove brilliantly. He is outscoring all rookies and constantly performing from the second he sat in that Mercedes seat. He was also voted as a driver of the day which surprised the team and Kimi himself. 

Red Bull just seem to lack pace at this point seeming to have lost their dominance and being in the Ferrari, Mercedes range in terms of pace. Yet, this weekend Max Verstappen pulled a commendable performance finishing third in the sprint and 4th in the race after overtaking Leclerc to gain that position. He was the tire whisperer this weekend, able to maintain his tires till the end and gain those positions in the closing stages. 

On the other hand, his teammate Liam Lawson has just been not up to the mark to say the least, not living up to anyone's expectations not even his own. He has qualified last or close to last this whole season and well in this race to he ended up finishing P12. Way off the points even after the 3 disqualifications and 1 retirement. Talks have been going around the paddock about him being replaced by as early as Japan in a fortnight's time but it would be unfair on the rookie without him getting enough time. But, it is possible knowing how ruthless Red Bull have been in the past.

Haas were the main outliers with scoring points with both drivers. What a turnaround they have had from last week. Esteban Ocon finished in P5 one of the biggest point hauls for the Haas team in such a long time. Oliver Bearman finished in P8 after some brilliant overtakes with some radio messages ("Ciao") which showed us the Oliver Bearman from last year who had scored points for both Ferrari and Haas. He has shown great potential till now and keeps on surprising the fans constantly. In the end all Haas did was master their strategy with pin point accuracy and did not try anything special which is what gave them this huge points haul.

VCaRB could not score any points as they were caught out by other teams as they were the only team in the midfield to have gone for a two stop strategy which did not pay off.

Alpine also did not have a good weekend with Jack Doohan finishing out of the points and Pierre Gasly being disqualified.

This has been the worst start of a season for Fernando Alonso with two DNFs in the first two races of the season whereas on the other hand for the first time his teammate Lance Stroll is raking up points.

The Sauber team also just lacked pure pace in the race finishing 14th and 15th out of the 16 drivers to cross the line.

At the end it was an eventful race which has given us many takeaways. 

McLaren look like the team to beat again after the end of last season. But the other teams like Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari are not that far behind like Hamilton proved in the sprint. For the first time in a long time it looks like it might be a 4 way battle for wins this season. 

With that the second round the Chinese Grand Prix is done and dusted. The F1 paddock will be heading to Japan in a fortnights time. Will McLaren still be the car to beat or someone else like Hamilton in a Ferrari or Max in a Red Bull, from the other three teams be able to contest and possibly beat the Papayas? Only time will tell.......