Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll set the unexpected pace in the only practice before Friday morning’s Sprint Qualifying at the Chinese GP in an intriguing session which had earlier been interrupted by a bizarre grass fire.
With F1 cars running around the vast and fast Shanghai International Circuit after a five-year absence at the start of the season’s first Sprint weekend, teams appeared to take differing approaches to the hour of running with alternative strategies for tyres and, seemingly, fuel loads evident through the field to create an unusual-looking final timesheet.
World champion Max Verstappen had led much of the session for Red Bull, on medium and then soft tyres, but was overhauled in the closing minutes as track conditions evolved – first by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and then Aston Martin’s Stroll.
Stroll’s fastest time of 1:36.302 was 0.327s quicker than Piastri’s, with Red Bull’s Verstappen a further 0.021s adrift.
Sergio Perez was fourth in the second Red Bull ahead of the Haas cars of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon in sixth.
Ferrari, Red Bull’s closest challengers so far this season, ran the soft tyres early in the session and eventually slipped out of the top 10, while Mercedes were the only team not to run either the soft or the medium compound.
Teams will now immediately prepare for Sprint Qualifying at 8.30am, the 45-minute session that sets the grid for the 19-lap Sprint race at 4am on Saturday.
F1 is back in China for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic and the appearance of the Shanghai track surface had surprised drivers and teams during their circuit walks on Thursday, with what some had initially thought were darker painted sections but was actually a bitumen treatment, which is designed to prevent disintegration and eliminate dust.
However, with the track perhaps not quite proving as grip-less as feared when practice commenced on Friday, it was soon the grass on the inside of the track that was causing more concern.
It was a quarter of an hour in to running when a small fire suddenly broke out on a patch of grass on the inside of Turn Seven. Race Control threw the red flag, with cars returning to the pit lane, to allow marshals the chance to put the fire out with extinguishers.
The matter was swiftly resolved with a scorched section of grass left to show for the bizarre incident when cars returned to the track minutes later.
While highly unusual, it appears a spark generated by a titanium skid-block on the underside of a car while hitting the ground through the high-speed section may have been the culprit amid dry but windy conditions in Shanghai after rain earlier in the week.
Mercedes, meanwhile, were the only team to exclusively run the hardest, and slowest, tyre compound through the session, meaning George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished down in unrepresentative 17th and 18th positions as a result.
Hamilton was given a black-and-white warning flag during the session after not adhering to the race director’s instructions by crossing the white line on the entry to the pit lane.
However, the Briton’s decision to take to the pit lane appeared to be sudden and inadvertent after he said he was pushed wide at the final corner by the McLaren of Piastri.
Friday April 19
8am: Chinese GP Sprint Qualifying (session starts at 8.30am)*
Saturday April 20
3.30am: Chinese GP Sprint (race starts at 4am)*
7am: Chinese GP Qualifying build-up*
8am: Chinese GP Qualifying*
10am: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook*
A quick look back at some of the biggest moments from the Chinese Grand Prix over the years…
Sunday April 21
7am: Grand Prix Sunday: Chinese GP build-up*
8am: The CHINESE GRAND PRIX*
10am: Chequered Flag: Chinese GP reaction*
11am: Ted’s Notebook*
*also live on Sky Sports Main Event
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