Lewis Hamilton scored his first victory as a Ferrari driver in the sprint race at Shanghai.
He was never headed over the 19-lap encounter after leading Max Verstappen away from the grid.Verstappen held second place for much of the race until Oscar Piastri passed him with four laps to go. As the drivers nursed their medium compound tyres to the finish, Verstappen clearly thought better of trying too hard to defend his position, and Piastri gained the place with little difficulty in the extended DRS zone.
Despite falling to third, Verstappen closed on championship leader Lando Norris, who had a poor race from sixth on the grid. He ran wide on the first lap and fell to ninth, and only recovered one position for a solitary point at the flag.
Hamilton made good his escape while Verstappen and Leclerc swapped positions, moving over six seconds up the road. He duly claimed his first victory in a sprint race, and his first win in any race since joining Ferrari.
His race engineer Riccardo Adami congratulated him after he took the chequered flag, calling his victory a “masterclass of tyre management.”
The drivers who successfully managed their tyres until the end made gains in the final laps, but there were few changes of position among the points scorers.
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George Russell fell over four seconds off Verstappen at one stage, then reeled him in over the final laps. However he was too preoccupied with keeping Leclerc at swords’ length to do anything about the Ferrari.
Yuki Tsunoda came in sixth, holding off Andrea Kimi Antonelli, while Norris picked off Lance Stroll for the final point.
Jack Doohan lunged at Gabriel Bortoleto on the final lap, knocking the Sauber driver into a spin. The stewards will investigate the incident.
From last on the grid, besides Nico Hulkenberg’s pit lane-starting Sauber, Liam Lawson climbed to 14th at the finish. The stewards took no action over brief contact between him and Doohan.
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2025 Chinese Grand Prix
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Kribana (@krichelle)
22nd March 2025, 3:50
Whoever qualifies on pole and can lead the first few laps tomorrow, is likely to win the race. I am surprised none of the top 3 commented negatively about the tyres. At this point, it might look like a 2-3 stop race.
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd March 2025, 3:50
Good sprint win for Hamilton, but some drivers surprisingly lost their grip quite suddenly + struggled to get past slower cars, & Lawson was rather brave with some of his moves & Doohan totally messed up at the end.
Doggy
22nd March 2025, 3:52
Lewis did an amazing job. But calling this a masterclass, it’s way out of line..
David BR (@david-br)
22nd March 2025, 4:07
Well, it was his engineer and it kind of was in a miniature way.
Edvaldo
22nd March 2025, 4:37
There’s a reason it is in quotes. His engineer, the one he didnt listen the other day, is the one who said it.
Doggy
22nd March 2025, 16:44
Which is why I did not blame it on the author of this article, but rather those who called masterclass.
The engineer is trying to buy good will points
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
22nd March 2025, 4:59
there was the perception that Lewis was able to keep Max just out of range while burning up his tires. This might actually have been the case. Also, he was able to gap Piastri after he blew his tires trying to pass Max. Hence, mastering both his opponents.
Doggy
22nd March 2025, 19:36
Interesting was way to play with semantics. This is one if the beauty of language.
David BR (@david-br)
22nd March 2025, 23:01
@pcxmac Exactly. Peter Windsor, who seems to have lost any insight he once had by becoming solely fixated on ‘short corners’, came out with the idea that Hamilton was ‘lucky’ because when Verstappen closed to within DRS range, his tyres starting going off. Well duh. That was LH’s plan.
Chaitanya
22nd March 2025, 4:02
Norris still is the biggest choker on grid.
David BR (@david-br)
22nd March 2025, 4:05
Great start from Hamilton off the line, aggressive block into the first corner. Kept Verstappen at just the right distance and then all the tyre managing skills learnt over the years did the rest, impressive adaptation to the new car. But as he said after the race, it’s just the start. If it’s climbing Everest, it’s still just two steps outside the tent at base camp.
Not much else of note: Lawson bumper car-ing his way up a few places, Norris, a return of the poor starts. Biggest news: incredibly close season ahead, probably.
Maciek (@maciek)
22nd March 2025, 4:06
Lawson’s drive won’t exactly make the history books, but I thought he was… let’s say understatedly impressive. He needed to be aggressive and show progress to earn some cred, and he did that I thought.
ykiki (@ykiki)
22nd March 2025, 5:48
I think it was “ok”, but a little better towards the end. From the start of the race, he seemed to be merely treading water and didn’t make any passes until finally aided by DRS.
Gerrit
22nd March 2025, 5:50
Further impressive that during the whole race Lawson was in a tightly packed drs train.
AlexS
22nd March 2025, 4:06
I must say a poor written text, parts do not make any sense. I put it to deep night in UK it was written.
It seems Pirelli finally made tires that F1 management wants= the tires that no one can understand.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
22nd March 2025, 18:15
So like in 2012, from what I heard? I think it’s a good thing, it mixes up the competitive order a bit, in 2012 we had an insane amount of different winners.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
22nd March 2025, 4:12
Great drive from Lewis who managed to resist Verstappen when he was suffering from graining. Meanwhile, Leclerc needs to step up, he’s letting drivers dive past him too easily on the inside under braking. I think this is Ferrari’s first ever sprint victory. A huge boost for the team’s morale after the disappointment in Melbourne.
McLaren for me still looks like the fastest car on pure pace, but Ferrari and RBR have the stronger drivers, which allows them to capitalize on the mistakes of both Norris and Piastri.
Lloyd
22nd March 2025, 5:43
Spot on, great analysis.
Edvaldo
22nd March 2025, 4:40
Norris again losing positions by touching the gravel trap completely on his own. Not a champion drive.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
22nd March 2025, 6:35
Would have been interesting to see how Hamilton could have done if he’d had a McLaren behind him the whole race. He seemed to have bags of tyres left at the end whilst all others were flagging. Must have been a very managed pace for a lot of laps from Hamilton.
An Sionnach
22nd March 2025, 12:50
Excellent from Lewis. He’s making the difference on the track. With Norris, the problem seems to be in the chair, not in the car. Leclerc too, to an extent. They don’t seem to be able to work out how to drive a lap around here.