Shanghai Here We Come!
Posted on March 20, 2025 Tags: Shanghai International Circuit
Follows Wild Melbourne F1 Race
Where Seven Drivers Failed to Finish
WE’RE OFF TO SHANGHAI this week following the chaos of the Australian F1 Grand Prix race – an exciting spectacle, despite being an absolute downer for the seven drivers who came to grief during the wild race.
The unpredictable weather played a significant role in Melbourne on Race Day, with rain causing treacherous track conditions and multiple incidents.
Nevertheless, the AGP kickstarted what promises to be a 2025 fascinating season, with McLaren’s Lando Norris just managing to hold off Red Bull defending champion Max Verstappen for victory. Mercedes George Russell finished third.
It puts Lando in the lead of the World Championship for the first time, knocking Max off the summit of the drivers’ standings after three years on top.
Weather causes race chaos
The 2025 Australian F1 Grand Prix was chaotic, with several incidents leading to retirements. Here’s what caused the seven drivers to fail to finish:
1. Isack Hadjar – Crashed during the formation lap due to wet conditions, delaying the race start.
2. Jack Doohan – Spun into the wall on the first racing lap after losing grip on the wet track.
3. Carlos Sainz – Lost control and hit the barriers shortly after the start.
4. Pierre Gasly – Retired due to a mechanical failure mid-race.
5. Kevin Magnussen – Collided with another car, ending his race.
6. Yuki Tsunoda – Retired after spinning out in worsening rain conditions.
7. Liam Lawson – Crashed at Turn 2 with about 10 laps remaining, as Red Bull gambled on slick tyres in the rain.
Just How Good is McLaren?
Those unfortunate conditions around Albert Park did nothing to answer the burning question – just how great is the mighty McLaren’ advantage over the field, particularly main rivals Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes? And maybe Williams.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner admitted the New Zealander Liam Lawson had struggled to get to grips with his new car in Melbourne.
‘It was a difficult weekend for him,’ Christian conceded. ‘We changed the car to put a bit more downforce on the car. It’s a very hard track to overtake at.’
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko said the team would be keeping “a close eye” on Lawson over the coming weeks.
“He wanted to show what he can do and unfortunately that went wrong. We have to let him cool down a bit now and observe his development over the first three to five races.’
F1 Rule changes for 2025
1. Drag Reduction System (DRS): The gap in the rear wing is now slightly smaller to reduce the speed boost that comes with the mechanism.
2. Points: any driver who finishes inside the top 10 of a race will no longer gain an extra point should they record the fastest lap at a Grand Prix.
3. Adverse weather: If Qualifying is cancelled the starting grid is based on the current standings in the drivers’ championship.
4. Swearing: Penalties now range from fines between $63,000 and $207,000, up to a one-month ban.
Number 4 is bound to have serious ramifications, and certainly won’t help FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem with his bid for re-election at the 2025 FIA General Assembly, scheduled to take place from June 10 to June 13, 2025, at the Galaxy International Convention Center in Macau.
Susie Wolff – the much better half of Mercedes boss Toto – was rumoured to be making a tilt at the title. But evidently, she’s decided instead to concentrate on her role as Managing Director of the F1 ACADEMY (see below).
F1 ACADEMY back for 2025
Another unmissable F1 ACADEMY season is just around the corner, as the 2025 field prepare to do battle at the Shanghai International Circuit for the first of a seven-round campaign.
With six teams, 17 full-time drivers and one Wild Card entry at every round, the grid is stacked full of young female talent looking to stamp their mark on the season, but who can follow in 2024 Champion Abbi Pulling’s footsteps?
Keep an eye on Brit Alisha Palmowski (Red Bull), Doriane Pin (Mercedes) from France, and Maya Weng (Ferrari) from Holland, who are three of the fiercest contenders and could be in with a shot at being crowned the third F1 ACADEMY Champion.
Chinese weekend presents many challenges
The 18th running of the Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai throws up some special challenges for the teams and drivers, but also for Pirelli.
Starting with a completely resurfaced track and just one hour of free practice to see how much it has changed compared to past years.
And not the least of which is this new surface, laid down on the 5.451km Shanghai International Circuit – and the pit lane – during the northern summer.
The track was only used a few times towards the end of 2024 and should be smoother than before. As the Grand Prix is its first event of the year, it’s logical to expect the track to evolve very quickly.
The circuit features several slow corners, such as the first three, turn 6 and 14 and high-speed corners like the combination from 7 to 8. There are two long straights – one that crosses the start-finish line and another between turns 13 and 14, which is over a kilometre in length.
Shanghai features two DRS zones, the first now being 75 metres longer than last year.
Shanghai first Sprint for ’25
Shanghai is the first Sprint format event of the year, with just one free practice session on Friday.
That means only 60 minutes to find the right car set-up and evaluate the performance of the various compounds over a long run, even if Saturday’s short race is a great test bed to fully assess at least one of them.
The trio of compounds is the same as last year: C2 as Hard, C3 as Medium and C4 as Soft. The last two were in use in Melbourne last weekend, while the first was run extensively in the three-day test in Bahrain at the end of February.
However, one must remember that all the compounds are different to those from last year. The C2, in particular, is softer and therefore closer to the C3 than in the past.
Shanghai’s layout is based on the Chinese character “shang” meaning “upwards” or “above”.
SHANGHAI, CHINA
With a strong reference to Melbourne, weather is always a with outdoor activities and this is the first time Shanghai has hosted a Grand Prix in March when average temperatures rarely exceed 18 °C.
But the forecast for the weekend should see them climb above 20 °C as from Friday, reaching a high of 26 °C on Saturday.
While the standard weekend format features two hour-long free practice sessions on Friday and a further hour on Saturday followed by qualifying, the current Sprint format features just one free practice session to start the track action on Friday, followed by a qualifying session later that day.
This decides the grid for Saturday’s 100-kilometre race, one third distance of the normal race, which is followed by qualifying for Sunday’s actual Grand Prix.
Qualifying for the Sprint is split into three segments that are shorter than those for the Grand Prix – 12 minutes for SQ1, ten for SQ2 and eight for SQ3.
For the first two parts, all drivers must use only the Medium compound, before switching to the Soft for the final session. As for the short race itself, tyre choice is free and there is no need to make a pit stop.
Since the sprint format was Introduced at Silverstone in 2021 (https://www.pirelli.com/global/en-ww/race/legacy-of-speed-episode-3-158941/) there have been 18 Sprint races, with Max Verstappen the master of this discipline 11 wins, including last year. Shanghai first appeared on the World Championship calendar in 2004, always at this circuit. That inaugural event was won by Rubens Barrichello, driving a Ferrari.Lewis Hamilton has six wins here, as well as nine podiums. Mercedes heads the teams list on six wins, two more than Ferrari, which has the most podium finishes to its name (13), one more than Mercedes.
Chinese Grand Prix
Perth, WA Times
Shanghai International Circuit | 21 – 23 March
Practice 1 Friday 21st March 11:30
Sprint Shootout Friday 21st March 15:30
Sprint Saturday 22nd March 11:00
Qualifying Saturday 22nd March 15:00
RACE
Sunday 23rd March 15:00
NEXT EVENT
Japanese Grand Prix
Suzuka International Racing Course | 04 – 06 April
Leave a Reply