Verstappen’s Chinese GP dominance leaves rivals in the dust

Red Bull Racing/Red Bull Content Pool

SHANGHAI -- Max Verstappen's reign over Formula One continued unabated with a commanding victory at the Chinese Grand Prix, underscoring his dominance in what is now his third consecutive year at the pinnacle of the sport. Among his four wins this season, his latest triumph in Shanghai silenced any notions of a credible championship challenge, even from his Red Bull teammate, Sergio Perez.

Two mid-race safety cars camouflaged the true extent of Verstappen's dominance, whittling down what could have been a 25-second lead over second-place Lando Norris to a mere 13 seconds. "He's just like a metronome," said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. "The pace that he showed last year to win the title, he's just continued that through to this season. Since the last Chinese Grand Prix [in 2019], he's won 50 percent of all the races. He's won 21 of the last 23 races. He's in fantastic form, at one with the car and at one with the team, and enjoying his racing."

Verstappen was uncharacteristically modest about his performance. "It was a good one, yeah," he commented, "Also, in terms of the balance in the car, we did a good job as a team to make it even better than what it was at the start of the weekend."

As the F1 calendar moves on to Miami for the first of three rounds in the USA, Verstappen remains cautious but driven. "It's a completely different track," he said. "We need to be perfect -- need to try and be perfect. We need to always try and find the best setup on the car to be able to show performances like we did today."

Norris shines as he returns to the podium

In Verstappen's rearview mirror, Lando Norris celebrated a hard-earned second-place finish, outperforming Perez and marking a notable success for McLaren. "Whenever I finish behind Max, I feel like it's a win," Norris remarked. "A great day, really a surprise, I was not expecting a day like today. So very happy for myself and for the whole team, more importantly. Definitely exceeded our expectations but a lot of things went our way."

The cooler conditions of the race seemed to play to McLaren's strengths, and Norris, leveraging an advantageous safety car period, managed his race to perfection. "Today I could control things on my own," he noted. "I could break away from Charles [Leclerc] very quickly. And then Charles was holding up Checo [Perez] a lot. Checo probably had to use a lot of his tyres to try and get past him. So yeah, it depends how you think of it. I probably maybe expected a bit more of a battle but then when I know how much he pushed in the beginning to pass the Ferrari, it allowed me to be a bit more comfortable, which was a nice thing."

Ferrari falters in Shanghai

Ferrari, this season's closest rivals to Red Bull, found themselves struggling in China. Although the team started the season strong, with Carlos Sainz winning the Australian Grand Prix, the Italian outfit failed to mount a competitive challenge in Shanghai, compounded by strategic missteps and poor qualifying performances.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur summed up the weekend: "When you drop to P7 and P9 the race is much more difficult because you have dirty air [from the cars in front] in the first laps, and even if you are faster it's particularly hard. Even if you are faster, you struggle to overtake because if you don't have the big gap in front of you, you damage the tyres for the first 10 laps behind other cars and then your race is dead."

A safety car period appeared to play into Ferrari’s hands, but their switch to hard compound tyres saw a drop in performance for both Leclerc and Sainz. "As soon as we put on the hards we were half a second off. That is very strange, we will look into it and try to understand what went wrong on that front," Leclerc said.

Ferrari is pinning hopes on a major upgrade at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in two races' time. "That's the plan, but let's see if it works like that," said Sainz. "I hope so, so we can try and make the Red Bulls' life more complicated. If not they are walking off with many wins this season."

Despite the volatility that the upcoming races may bring, Red Bull remains optimistic, largely due to Verstappen’s form. "It may be we go to the next event and the gap concertinas again, and I think it will probably do that because we've not raced in really hot temperatures [like Miami] yet," Horner commented. "There is still an awful lot of variables to come, but across the different circuits that we've had RB20 is delivering. Our drivers, and in particular Max, has done an amazing job."

As the Formula One season rolls on, Verstappen's grip on the championship remains unyielding, leaving the rest of the grid scrambling to close the gap.

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