Chinese GP: Race Preview

By: Derek Pierce

After a rather exhilarating season opener in Australia, Formula 1 will be carrying the momentum to China, a track notorious for its super long straights. Given how much the performance of the field has shaken up since we were last here, this race is sure to deliver something new to the fans.

 Momentum Holders

McLaren have all the momentum right now with both drivers putting up stellar performances last weekend despite Oscar Pisatri's spin at the end resulting in a less than ideal finish. With locking out the front row in qualifying and running 1-2 for the majority of the race culminating in Lando Norris being the first winner of the 2025 season, they seem to be the team to beat just like in the second half of last season.

Max Verstappen is another driver carrying some momentum with him. Despite Liam Lawson struggling immensely in the second Red Bull car, Verstappen was able to keep some pace with both McLaren cars for periods of time. With a P2 finish, Verstappen is going to be looking to get one step higher on the podium, as always, and hopefully reclaim to the lead in the championship.

Mercedes is the last group I would give momentum to credit for. Not only did George Russell perform about as expected with a P3, but Kimi Antonelli stunned a lot of people with his rebounding finish in P4. This team seems to not have missed a step at all and perhaps even got faster relative to a team like Ferrari and their teenage driver looks like one of the seasoned veterans out there.

Last Year in China

Comparing the races from last year to this year is going to be like comparing apples to oranges. This year the grand prix slots in as the second race of the season while last year it was about a month later as the fifth race giving teams less time to figure out their pairings and setups. Not only is it earlier, but the performance of the grid looks completely different. 

Last year we saw the typical Verstappen takeover where he just built a gap over the rest of the field and cruised to a fairly easy victory. Given how unknown the true performance level of the Red Bull car is and how fast we know McLaren and Mercedes are, I would be shocked to see anything like that happening again. 

Race Predictions

With how close the top of the field looks like it could be, it's going to be tough to try to predict these races, especially in the early stages in the season. However, I'm still going to give it my best shot and will either look really smart or really dumb.

With what we saw in the last race, McLaren definitely have the strongest car on the grid, and it will take a lot for a team to match them. I don't particularly see Piastri matching Norris' pace here, maybe even falling back to 4th or 5th in the race. As for Norris, I think it's a fair assessment to think he's going to be challenging for the win.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'd be the Ferrari drivers. There are still clear kinks to work out between Lewis Hamilton and his engineer and even Charles Leclerc looked to be a little off from the performance we'd expect from him. Maybe they can turn something around in a week, I mean they do have two extremely talented and knowledgeable drivers to disect what is going wrong, but I just don't see it. I think they're going to be challenging for a podium finish, at best, and more likely to finish P4-P7.

Verstappen is one of the harder ones to predict. As mentioned earlier, there's still so much unknown about the true speed of the Red Bull and if it's not improved from Australia, I just don't see him being all that competitive for the win. At the end of the day, Verstappen is Verstappen, and he will carry the worst car in the field to a podium if need be. I don't think he'll have the speed needed to compete with McLaren or Mercedes and is a pretty solid choice for a 3rd.

Speaking of the Mercedes team, my predictions will end on the hottest of notes and that is that I think Russell will win the Chinese GP. Throughout testing, at a track I would say is fairly similar to China, Russell was rivaling Norris' times and was even the fastest of the final day. Obviously, that isn't the clearest evidence that he's for sure the favorite, and I don't even think I would say that he is, but it does show there is some competitiveness from the car itself and if Russell is able to get hot, as we saw last year, he can turn it into a race win.