Lewis Hamilton went from the thrill of winning a sprint race for his new Ferrari team to the agony of being disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix the following day alongside teammate Charles Leclerc.
There was so much drama at Ferrari that it overshadowed Sunday's Grand Prix win for Oscar Piastri, who looks like he might be the closest title challenger to his McLaren teammate Lando Norris this year.
Ahead of next week's Japanese Grand Prix, here are five takeaways from Shanghai:
Ferrari scrambles to fix problems
Having both drivers disqualified for technical infringements is acutely embarrassing for Ferrari, which has two weeks to get to the bottom of the problem before the next race. Leclerc lost his fifth-place finish because his car was underweight, while Hamilton had a ride-height infringement.
All Formula 1 teams set up their cars as close to the limits as possible, but having two cars excluded for different reasons could point to more than one problem with Ferrari's cars or working procedures.
“There was no intention to gain any advantage. We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don't make the same mistakes again,” the team said.
There are also questions over how setup choices affect the two drivers' pace. Hamilton went from having a setup capable of winning the sprint race Saturday to being slower than Leclerc on Sunday, even though his teammate had a broken front wing.
McLaren's rules for the title fight
It's clear that McLaren is the team to beat. Its cars are kinder to their tires, allowing Norris and Piastri to push harder for longer. Other teams can keep up in qualifying or a shorter sprint race but not yet over a full race distance.
That makes it all the more important how McLaren enforces its “papaya rules” which allow inter-team battles between the two orange cars, with some limits. Norris said he and Piastri had been “free to race” in China but he couldn't get close enough to his teammate and had to settle for second place.
Mercedes could be McLaren's closest rival
George Russell had a drama-free run to third place as Mercedes staked a claim to be the closest to McLaren on race pace. Not that close, though. He said Thursday that his team is “capable of winning every race.” Rookie teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli was only eighth but Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said he could have fought Max Verstappen for fourth if not for damage to his floor from driving over debris.
Pressure on Liam Lawson at Red Bull
Verstappen's teammate Liam Lawson may have thought his start to life at Red Bull couldn't get worse than qualifying 18th in Australia and then crashing out. It did. Lawson was last in qualifying for both the sprint race and Grand Prix in China and scored no points.
Red Bull's car seems to be highly sensitive and designed around Verstappen's driving style, something which made life hard for his ex-teammate Sergio Perez last year. “It is a very small window with this car and if you miss it, it is very penalizing,” Lawson said Sunday. If Red Bull did replace him after just two races, it would likely mean promoting Yuki Tsunoda in time for his home Grand Prix in Japan.
Haas goes from tailender to points-scorer
The biggest turnaround in Shanghai wasn't Hamilton going from 10th in Australia to a sprint race win. Haas was far behind even the next-slowest team in Australia a week earlier but the American team sorted out its setup problems and ended up with Esteban Ocon fifth and rookie Oliver Bearman eighth for a total of 14 points. That's more than Haas managed in the first 10 races of 2024.
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AP Formula 1: https://apnews.com/hub/formula-one
James Ellingworth, The Associated Press
