Chinese Grand Prix: What to expect this race weekend

• The Chinese Grand Prix is back this week following a five-year break, and drivers will need to reacquaint themselves with the Shanghai International Circuit.
• The teams will have a difficult assignment with only one practice session because of the sprint weekend.
• We look at what to expect this weekend.

The Chinese Grand Prix is back this week following a five-year break, and drivers will need to reacquaint themselves with the Shanghai International Circuit.

The teams will have a difficult assignment with only one practice session because of the sprint weekend.

We look at what to expect this weekend.

New sprint format

Formula one cars. Photo/GoodWood

With qualifying returning to Saturday and the reduced race taking place in the morning, Formula One has made some more changes to the sprint format.

The evidence will be seen in China as to how well it works, but one thing is for sure: teams won’t take unnecessary risks in a sprint race since they know the more crucial qualifying session is only a few hours away.

However, the modification pertaining to Parc Fermé may be of more significance. Setups used to be locked in after Formula One, which caused a lot of protests from the teams. Fortunately, Formula One has now given in.

Teams may now alter their setups until qualifying, which makes occurrences like the disqualification of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in Austin less likely.

Daniel Ricciardo v Yuki Tsunoda

Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda. Photo/ GPFans

Daniel Ricciardo appears to be under a lot of strain going into this race; there have already been rumors that his future is being reevaluated.

Yuki Tsunoda has dominated the Australian driver thus far in 2024; Tsunoda has outqualified Ricciardo in every race and defeated him three times out of four.

Importantly, though, Tsunoda is the one who wins the points. Tsunoda has placed as high as seventh, while Ricciardo’s greatest placing to far is 12th. Tsunoda’s point-scoring ability today is far more valuable than Ricciardo’s potential down the road in a midfield this tight.

Regarding Ricciardo’s career in China, he will remember this place favorably because he won here in 2018.

McLaren and Mercedes fight

McLaren and Mercedes cars in a race. Photo/ F1

This weekend, McLaren and Mercedes will be approaching it from two distinct perspectives. This configuration, with its lengthy, slow, and medium-speed corners, is among the worst that could be designed for the MCL38, according to Andrea Stella, the team principal of McLaren.

The truth is that, despite the Shanghai track’s combination of lengthy corners and slow, hard braking—McLaren’s weakness this year—they ought to be competing with Mercedes, at least in the long run, as we seen in Bahrain. Ferrari and Red Bull should be equal in qualifying, so things might become heated between them.

To contrast their advantages and disadvantages, let’s return to Bahrain, which is the most similar example to the Shanghai plan. Fast corners are currently Red Bull and McLaren domain, as Suzuka made abundantly evident. But for 2024, we’re about to go on an entirely new and enigmatic journey.

The connected curves T5-T6-T7 in this track domination graph show that McLaren performs better on medium- and high-speed corners, while Mercedes performs better on slow- and heavily-braking corner approaches. Russell finally secured an unexpected P3 in the season’s opening qualifying round as a result, while on Sunday the Silver Arrows and Papaya faced off in a close match.

Due to their current lack of maximum speed, both may be significantly handicapped throughout this exciting sprint weekend.

Zhou Guanyu’s home race

Zhou Guanyu. Photo/Planet F1

Zhou Guanyu has the hardest job of all the home drivers this season in terms of making the crowd happy.

While it is true that he is the first Chinese driver to compete in the nation, as Oscar Piastri demonstrated in Melbourne, nothing pleases supporters more than a successful outcome for the hometown favorite.

The issue is that Stake has performed admirably in each of the year’s four races.

Although he finished in lap 12 of his most recent race due to gearbox troubles, his P11 in Bahrain was his best of the year.

Not to add the ongoing issues with the pit stops that are impeding the team and don’t seem to have a speedy fix.