After the victory of Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) in the F1 sprint on Saturday morning, McLaren in qualifying to the Grand Prix of China 2025 restored the expected hacking order. The pole did not secure Lando Norris, but Oscar Piatri, with a best time of 1: 30,703 minutes.
After the first run in Q1, Piatri led to Norris. But Norris could not improve his lap time, came to the box prematurely. The route temperature fell in the last minutes of the session, and some could not cope with that. But George Russell already: The Mercedes driver at the very end in second place, only 0.082 seconds behind Piatri.
Norris finished 0.152 seconds behind, in front of Max Verstappen (Red Bull/+0.176) and the two Ferrari stars Lewis Hamilton (+0.286) and Charles Leclerc (+0.380). Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) was sensationally seventh, Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), whose first Q3 round was canceled in the last curve due to track limits.
Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) caused a sensation in Q1 and Q2 with some outstanding intermediate times. When it came down, he had to be satisfied with 9th place. Alexander Albon (Williams) became tenth. And Nico Hülkenberg (clean), the only German in the Formula 1 field, secured twelfth place in Shanghai.
How superior was McLaren really?
Norris already secured the best time in Q1. He unpacked the hammer for the first time in the first Q2 run. The McLaren pilot set a best time of 1: 30,787 minutes and was therefore 0.413 seconds faster than Piatri at the time. Verstappen to 3rd place was 0.447 seconds behind. And Hamilton, a few hours earlier, winner in the sprint, was seventh (+0,830).
That continued in the first Q3 run. This time Piatri was the fastest, 0.090 seconds before Norris and 0.222 seconds before Verstappen. “McLaren is simply the fastest car. They are two or three tenths faster than the rest,” analyzed the former Mercedes engineer Philipp Brändle in the live comment on “ServusTV”.
Racing Bulls Sensation in Q1: What’s wrong with Lawson?
Q1 produced a reasonably surprising result. Best time drove Norris in 1: 30,983 minutes. So far, so expected. But behind him the Racing Bulls Hadjar and Tsunoda secured places 2 and 3. At the same time, Liam Lawson (Red Bull) resigned as 20th and last. Legend to teammate Verstappen: 0.750 seconds.
“The car’s window is really small. This is known. But to be honest: This is not an excuse,” says Lawson. “I just had an untidy session, and if we hadn’t had to struggle with traffic and things, it might have been okay. But to be honest: it is still not good enough. We should be fast enough on our first round. I just have to get it under control.”
In addition to Lawson, Pierre Gasly (Alpine), Oliver Bearman (Haas), Jack Doohan (Alpine) and Gabriel Bortoleto (clean) also caught it in the first section. Doohan, among other things, after a spin on his first round, Bortoleto with 0.220 seconds behind Hülkenberg in the other.
Hülkenberg in Q2 out: How about the German?
For the German, the end station was then in Q2. Hülkenberg became twelfth, 0.037 seconds behind the Albon period, which would have been enough for the top 10.
As an eleventh, Esteban Ocon ensured a small ray of hope from the perspective of the Haas team. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) took P13. And behind the veteran from Spain, Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Carlos Sainz (Williams) joined. Bitter for Sainz: He received the next defeat in the team duel against Albon. This time by 0.245 seconds.