Five quick takeaways from F1’s Chinese GP sprint and qualifying – Charm

1. Mercedes’ gap is not insurmountable

It is said Melbourne was one of the most energy-starved circuits on the calendar, a statement which reeks of gaslighting as the problem lies with the cars themselves and not the circuits. In any case, Shanghai offering more severe braking zones and ‘regen’ opportunities might go some way towards explaining why Mercedes has been less dominant this weekend.

There is no doubt the W17 is the class of the field, as its virtues go much further than simply being ahead with energy deployment. It also enjoys excellent cornering and handling characteristics. But Ferrari wasn’t miles away either, which is a sigh of relief for neutral F1 fans, never mind the passionate tifosi desperate for a title challenge.

George Russell’s qualifying scare showed Mercedes isn’t bulletproof either, while Ferrari now appears to have two horses in the race as a rejuvenated Lewis Hamilton finds a car much more to his liking.

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2. Has McLaren started its ‘remontada’?

Melbourne was quite the sobering weekend for the defending world champions, as McLaren found itself down on overall car performance and understanding of the Mercedes power unit compared to the works team.

McLaren is more convincingly the third-fastest team in China as Red Bull struggled, and its gap to Mercedes and Ferrari also looks smaller with less dramatic energy harvesting demands. A better qualifying lap from Lando Norris could and probably should have split up the Ferraris.

Given the McLaren team’s impressive track record of piling on significant upgrades to its cars, don’t bet against the Woking squad to be up there later this year.

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3. Bearman has found another gear

Oliver Bearman was an honourable mention in last week’s Winners and Losers column, but truth be told he probably merits more than that already. After dunking on team-mate Esteban Ocon for large spells of last season, Bearman took an outstanding seventh in Australia and backed that up with more points in China’s sprint and another Q3 berth in qualifying.

Still only 20 years old, Bearman seems to have made the biggest step of all 2025 rookies compared to 12 months ago, though Kimi Antonelli also deserves to be in that conversation. The future is bright for both, and in Bearman’s case likely scarlet-coloured.

4. Red Bull’s issues go much further than the power unit

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Lintao Zhang / LAT Images via Getty Images

A lot was made of Red Bull’s ‘Mount Everest’ challenge of becoming a fully-fledged power unit manufacturer. Its Red Bull Ford Powertrains plant has done a quite frankly unbelievable job to be as far along as it is.

But China further unearthed some underlying issues with the RB22 itself, as the car’s balance looks all over the place in both qualifying trim and on long runs. It led to a strange and rare off for Max Verstappen in the sprint, and he was resigned to eighth on the grid, nearly a second behind polesitter Antonelli.

The silver lining is that Isack Hadjar looks the part, closely following Verstappen in ninth. But being so far off pole is depressing.

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5. Aston Martin and Cadillac make baby steps

Aston Martin must be a big fan of the sprint concept, as it allows the beleaguered outfit to at least see a few chequered flags during this troubled early stage of its Honda partnership.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll ran more respectably in the 19-lap contest, albeit flattered by a late safety car and unable to pose any sort of threat to the rest of the midfield. In qualifying, it was mainly Williams’ troubles that made Aston’s gap to the rest of the midfield look smaller than it really is. Alonso’s gap to the best car from the likes of Haas and Alpine was still a massive 1.6 seconds.

But Aston’s biggest worry right now is simply making it to Sunday given its dearth of spare parts, so it just needs to focus on running laps reliably. From that point of view Saturday went about as well as it could wish for.

Reality is hitting Cadillac after getting a car to the finish on its Australian honeymoon, as the team faced more reliability issues which Sergio Perez indicated had already popped up as early as Barcelona. But Valtteri Bottas mixing it up with the Astons in qualifying is at least an encouraging sign that it is slowly unlocked a bit more pace.