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The Frenchman was granted Alpine’s new floor upgrade initially pencilled in for Miami, as one undertray construction was fast-tracked in time for the Chinese Grand Prix.This new floor features changes to the diffuser, heavily revised front fences, and a new floor edge wing that features a slot towards the rear.Although these changes should yield an uptick in performance, Ocon stated that the …Keep reading
As part of the new sprint format for 2024, qualifying will occupy its usual Saturday afternoon slot. This means the 60-minute pole shootout is now scheduled a few hours after the Sprint and will determine the grid for Sunday’s grand prix.A pecking order is hard to determine, especially with FP1 taking place on a dusty track and Sprint shooutout being held in wet conditions.What time does …Keep reading
As part of the new weekend format for 2024, the sprint race will be held on Saturday morning before qualifying for the grand prix later in the day.McLaren’s Lando Norris will line up on pole position ahead of the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, with Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull) sharing the second row of the grid.What time does the Sprint race for the Chinese Grand Prix …Keep reading
With F1 teams having done a lot of pre-event work in the simulator based on information from both Pirelli and the FIA, they were caught out when they arrived at the circuit on Wednesday by the visibly different track surface.While drivers said it looked like the track had been “painted”, it emerged that it was actually a liquid bitumen surface treatment that had been applied last year to help …Keep reading
Red Bull already has Max Verstappen under contract for 2025, while Perez has impressed in the opening part of the 2024 season to ensure he is likely to retain his seat at the team.Perez stated on Thursday that, given the dynamic nature of the 2025 driver market, he expected “to know my future in the coming weeks, because everything is moving quite fast. So I think it’s important not to wait for …Keep reading
Sainz qualified fifth and team-mate Charles Leclerc seventh as the Ferraris struggled to get their tyres warmed up in a rainy end to Friday’s sprint qualifying.Leclerc went off when it started raining, bending his steering rack, which Sainz admitted could have easily happened to him too.”With the intermediate tyres we waited a long time at the pitlane exit, they got cold, and then Charles and I …Keep reading
First practice on Friday morning had to be red-flagged after a fire erupted on the grass on the inside of Turn 7 at the Shanghai International Circuit.The same section later caught fire at the end of the first session of sprint qualifying, which led to the start of SQ2 being briefly delayed.Following the first problem on Friday morning, the FIA visited the area before qualifying to try to …Keep reading
Hamilton was one of the standout performers of a wet final qualifying segment on Friday afternoon, taking second behind McLaren’s Lando Norris.The seven-time world champion said his car “came alive” in the wet, but he’s realistic about its potential if Saturday morning’s sprint is held in dry conditions.”It was pretty tricky conditions. Not a lot of grip for everyone, but so happy,” he told F1 …Keep reading
Having claimed every pole position so far in the 2024 F1 season, Verstappen looked strong favourite again after topping Q2 of sprint qualifying in the dry.But as rain fell at the Shanghai International Circuit it produced a major unknown given no driver had any wet running at a track F1 had not visited for five years.With multiple drivers slipping off the track in Q3, Verstappen had two lap times …Keep reading
Rain made the already slippery Shanghai surface even more treacherous and Friday afternoon’s final segment of sprint qualifying was peppered with incidents, with world champion Max Verstappen going off twice and Charles Leclerc tapping the wall with his front wing.McLaren driver Norris bagged sprint pole, but not before his lap was briefly deleted. Right before embarking on the lap that would …Keep reading