Australian Oscar Piastre with McLaren won the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix. He started from first position and did not lose it until the end of the 56 racing laps on the Shanghai track.
Second was his teammate Lando Norris, who was the winner of the first race of the season in Australia a week ago. The top 3 was completed by another Briton - George Russell with Mercedes, who had a technical problem at the end of the race. but still retained his place on the podium.
The top 6 included world champion Max Verstappen with Red Bull, as well as the two Ferrari cars driven by Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. Points were also scored by Frenchman Esteban Ocon with Haas, Italian Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli, Thai Alexander Albon with Williams and Briton Oliver Bearman with Haas.
The race at the Shanghai track began with an aggressive attack at the first corner by George Russell. The Mercedes driver, who started from the front row next to Piastre, tried to enter the first corner from his inside trajectory, but was blocked by the Australian. This freed up space on the outside for Lando Norris, who moved into second position, despite starting third.
In the second corner, a collision occurred between Ferrari teammates Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. The Briton escaped unharmed, but part of the front wing of Leclerc's car broke off from contact with Hamilton's right rear tire. The Monegasque continued like this until the end of the race, and surprisingly this defect did not seriously affect his performance.
The only driver to drop out was Fernando Alonso with an Aston Martin. The Spaniard, who won at this track 20 years ago, had a brake problem on the fourth lap and went back to the pits.
After the 12th lap, the drivers started to come into the pits. 18 of the 20 drivers at the start had chosen medium tires. At the front, they all had the same strategy and after the early stop, they put on the hard tires to drive with until the end of the race. This deprived it of a lot of dynamics, and overtaking became extremely rare.
One of the most interesting moments was Lando Norris' decision not only not to attack his teammate Oscar Piastre, but also to pull back a few seconds behind him. The Briton did not want to drive into Piastre's air stream and wear out his front tires unnecessarily. His tactic was to attack at the end of the race, but that did not work.
The fight for fourth place between Leclerc and Max Verstappen in Red Bull was much more exciting. The Dutchman was fifth for most of the race, but he did not stop trying to overtake him, and this happened on lap 53. Immediately afterwards, Leclerc tried to counterattack, but his move was not successful.
The other Ferrari driver - Lewis Hamilton, had to be content with sixth place. The seven-time world champion, who won the sprint race on Saturday in a similar way to Piastre today, entered the pits twice, and it was never clear why he visited them a second time. This left him seriously behind Leclerc and Verstappen, and although his tires were better preserved at the end, he had no chance to attack either of them to gain a more advanced position.
For Oscar Piastre, this is the third victory of his Formula 1 career. His first two were last season in the races in Hungary and Azerbaijan.