Unsinkable, Briton Lando Norris will start Saturday at the head of the sprint race for the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix, the fifth meeting of the season, after achieving the best qualifying time on Friday in complicated conditions.
On the Shanghai track, made very slippery by the rain falling on the new track surface, the McLaren driver got the better of the Mercedes of his compatriot Lewis Hamilton, who will start second in the sprint race which will start on Saturday at 5:00 a.m. (Paris time, GMT+2).
“We had to take a lot of risks,” assured Norris upon arrival. “We were only allowed three laps and the first two I interrupted, so it was all or nothing,” he also explained.
In front of stands with a sparse audience for the return of the Chinese event after five years of absence due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the poleman also saw his last time ensuring him the pole canceled… before be restored at the very end of the session, at the expense of Hamilton to whom pole seemed promised.
The second row will return on Saturday to the double Spanish world champion Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), who will start in front of another champion, Max Verstappen (Red Bull).
“Like driving on ice”
The Dutchman, currently leader in the championship thanks to his three victories in four GPs, saw two of his times canceled for having exceeded the limits of the track. Like several of its competitors, “Mad Max” had a few scares in the rain.
“It was incredibly slippery and I had a lot of trouble getting the tires up to temperature,” reacted the three-time reigning champion. “It was like driving on ice, so we deserved our place (…) but in the dry, the car was quite good.” The rest of the weekend should take place on a dry track according to the latest weather forecasts.
Behind the quartet, follows the Spaniard Carlos Sainz, 5th, who once again did better than his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, 7th.
The Monegasque also got scared at the start of SQ3, the last part of qualifying where pole is at stake, when he hit the wall after leaving the track.
If he was able to leave, “it compromised our qualification but we could not have done much more,” he admitted.
He will start in front of the Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren), 8th while the other Red Bull, Mexican Sergio Pérez, 6th, will be inserted between the two SF-24s.
Lawn lights
Acclaimed by the public, event local Zhou Guanyu will start 10th at the wheel of his Sauber. The Shanghai native, who arrived in the elite in 2022, is the first Chinese in history to compete in Formula 1 in China.
As in the only practice session held earlier in the day, the end of the first part of qualifying (SQ1) was disrupted by a fire breaking out on the lawn near the circuit.
Time to put out the fire – visibly caused by the sparks coming from the single-seaters – the drivers returned to the track for the rest of qualifying.
Only the last five of this SQ1 remained in the garage, including the two Williams of the Thai Alexander Albon and the American Logan Sargeant – and the two Alpine of the French Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, who will start from 16th and 17th positions respectively.
The Chinese GP is the first of six rounds of the year to feature a sprint format, which changes the course of the weekend.
Thus, the drivers only carry out one free practice session on Friday before qualifying which determines the grid for the sprint race run the next day. After this race, the drivers will compete in “classic” qualifying, which will determine the starting grid for Sunday’s GP.