Yep! It’s that time of the year when all the PR teams tap into the bag of stereotypical and offensive slogans to mark their strong arrival at the Chinese mainland. From fun calligraphy activities to a feature Zhou Ghanyou interview about how excited he feels ahead of a race weekend as a reserve driver, boy oh boy could we just sense the thrilling weekend that is going to be ahead of us. The newly resurfaced purpose-built track of China after a challenging weekend at Melbourne brings no respite for rookies like Bearman, Hadjar, Doohan and Alonso who are looking for a good result after last week's tragedy. This weekend also marked the first sprint round for the season limiting the teams to only one free practice session to tune their car into the right window to maximise the results in a weekend with double point awarding rounds.

Limited running in the free practice makes for a superb qualifying as the order can be jumbled up in several permutations and combinations (with Lawson at the tail end of each of them). McLaren seemed a little off the pace, capitalised wonderfully by Ferrari as Hamilton found himself on pole for the first time in red. Bringing back the flashes of 2021, Max Verstappen dragged the Red Bull to a stunning P2 followed closely by the McLaren of Oscar Piastri. Tyre degradation headlined this entire weekend as drivers struggled with nursing their tyres in the dirty air. Lewis managed to put himself in a comfortable place whereas Max chewed through his tyres to keep up with Lewis and fell prey to the inevitable pace of the McLaren driven by Oscar Piastri as the race proceeded. Meanwhile, Lando struggled to make roads and only managed to come home in the final points-paying position. Lewis got the brilliant first win for the Maranello-based team, providing a stunning visual of the world of motorsport and raising the ‘hopium’ of all the Ferrari fans.

Ferrari’s magic faded earlier than the colours of a second copy of Ferrari merch, as they slipped back to their familiar P5 and P6. Meanwhile, McLaren returned to their rightful place—fighting for pole. Piastri proved to be the better McLaren for the weekend as he pulled out a monster final lap from thin air putting his car at the top spot and claiming his maiden pole while George Russel (out of nowhere, again!) split the McLaren from having a front row lockout followed by Max in the Red Bull. Oscar maintained the lead from George which allowed Lando to bite and get the P2 spot. Charles and Lewis had a contact in the first corner damaging Leclerc’s front wing by breaking the end plate (which proved a blessing rather than a curse). The race evolved into a one-stop (thanks to Stroll's masterclass) and the dirty air made the track look like Monaco in terms of overtaking. Special mention to Bearman for providing us with the overtaking action and garnishing them with a lovely ‘ciao’ at the end. Lando managed his tyres well to take it to Oscar in the final stint but the racing gods had something else planned as the brake pedal issue for Lando in the final 5 laps made it difficult for him to even finish second let alone challenge Oscar for a race win (which proved a big relief for Zak Brown).

THE CAR HAS A VERY SMALL DRIVING WINDOW.

Liam Lawson was the ‘rookie’ with the most expectations coming into this season owing to the performances he has shown previously in the junior Red Bull team but boy did he get on with a bumpy start. Lawson hasn’t managed to get out of Q1 in any of the three rounds of racing that we have seen until now. The problems he is facing with the car are made apparent in every competitive session. This has sent the rumour mill spinning already in full speed as news began to circle the paddock that Red Bull has decided to swap Yuki with Liam for the Red Bull seat to put Red Bull in a good points-scoring position ASAP and help Liam find his juju in the junior Red Bull team which is currently being deemed as the more ‘drivable’ Red Bull car. Time will tell how Red Bull manages this situation whom they choose to replace him in Red Bull and whether this could turn out as the end of Lawson’s career on the grid as we know it.

Ferrari fans, who lost all hope, lose the last additional bit of hope they didn’t even know he had.

 This weekend proved an emotional roller-coaster for all the Ferrari fans. From seeing Lewis Hamilton winning the Sprint to getting both their cars disqualified for the main race. Leclerc’s car didn’t manage to qualify the minimum weight criteria while Hamilton’s car showed more plank wear than allowed, indicating they were running the car lower than permitted. Imagine the pain of building the aerodynamic model of a car for months by investing money and efforts of thousands of people working back at the factory and seeing it run faster with a broken front wing, OUCH! To have both the cars from the very same team face disqualification in the same Grand Prix is not the best of the looks for a team with such an esteemed racing pedigree. Let’s see how quickly can Ferrari turn things around putting themselves in the mix to fight for wins and podiums in the long season that is ahead of us, similar to how they did it over Saturday.

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Did you notice random cars being instructed to pull over and pass the FIA weight bridge during qualifying? This is done to keep the teams in check and to collect the data thereby assuring no illegal setups are being run in the qualifying to provide an undue advantage to any of the teams.