Grand Prix thread HEINEKEN CHINESE GRAND PRIX 2026

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Who will finish first?

  • Lando Norris

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Oscar Piastri

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Max Verstappen

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Isack Hadjar

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • George Russell

    Votes: 3 50.0%

  • Kimi Antonelli

    Votes: 1 16.7%

  • Lewis Hamilton

    Votes: 2 33.3%

  • Charles Leclerc

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Franco Colapinto

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Any Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    6
  • Poll closed .
ched999uk

ched999uk

Well-Known Member
May 28, 2013
5,464
2,285
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Sunny Blackpool
56 laps of the 5.451km Shanghai International Circuit

13th March Practice 1 03:30 - 04:30
13th March Sprint Qualifying 07:30 - 08:14
14th March Sprint 03:00 - 04:00
14th March Qualifying 07:00 - 08:00
15th March Race 07:00 - 09:00

All times are UK times
Poll closes before Race Quali - Saturday!!!!!
 
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The pattern of Mercedes dominance is certainly emergeing now.Quickest in first practice with Kimi twice he was purple on sector 1 and 2 only to have to then slow down because of yellow flags.George and Kimi both 1 & 2 quickest with MacLaren 3 & 4 now showing more promise.

Gone Kimi ,I think it`s on the cards for him to get his first GP victory.
 
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William driver Alex Albon called to stewards room for breach of practice start rules " Under no circumstances perform a practice start if another Car remains stationary in front of them on the same side of the grid".Surely if in the start of the Grand Prix another car is slow on the start or even stalls,infront of Alex`s car he`s not going to wait behind until the car infront gets going. !!
 
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2.2 seconds between 1st and 10th in sq3.

Max 1.7 seconds behind

Antonelli most probably going to get a grid penalty for the sprint race for impeding Norris
 
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After a really impressive start, I think we’re starting to see the challenge facing the RBPT project. The Ferrari and Mercedes powered cars are unlocking more performance and starting to swamp RedBull, who look much more like a midfield team than the tail of the leading pack currently.
 
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I saw some throttle traces from the last race and it was quite staggering how much longer George was on the throttle vs McLaren.
It seems Merc don't have to provide any guidance on how to run the PUs. So while they have had months if not years to look at the design of the PUs and how to harvest and redeploy their customer teams have had very little actual time with the PUs to work it all out. I suspect race by race the teams will catch Merc quite quickly. Maybe Merc will have enough advantage by June (hot compression changes, etc) to make it to the end of the season winning both championships like Brawn did.
The break due to no races in Bahrain & Saudi might give customers time to get on top of the PU plus give them a little 'spare' cash from the budget cap to do extra development.

I do think Audi are not getting the coverage they deserve, they have come in with a new PU and have qualified 11th and 14th in the second weekend. That's quite an achievement in my books.
 
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George wins the sprint race from Charles and Lewis

Kimi Antonelli becomes Formula 1’s youngest ever pole sitter from Sebastian Vettel. George has issues in Q3. Only was able to do one run right at the end. But still qualified 2nd

Lewis on 3rd, Charles 4th, and the McLarens 5/6.

Only a 1/10th between Max and Hadjar.
 
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ched999uk said:
I saw some throttle traces from the last race and it was quite staggering how much longer George was on the throttle vs McLaren.
It seems Merc don't have to provide any guidance on how to run the PUs. So while they have had months if not years to look at the design of the PUs and how to harvest and redeploy their customer teams have had very little actual time with the PUs to work it all out. I suspect race by race the teams will catch Merc quite quickly. Maybe Merc will have enough advantage by June (hot compression changes, etc) to make it to the end of the season winning both championships like Brawn did.
The break due to no races in Bahrain & Saudi might give customers time to get on top of the PU plus give them a little 'spare' cash from the budget cap to do extra development.

I do think Audi are not getting the coverage they deserve, they have come in with a new PU and have qualified 11th and 14th in the second weekend. That's quite an achievement in my books.
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I agree with all of that Ched esp the Audi coverage . I think the amount of coverage they are currently getting may suit them though .

I think it was Audi who said they wanted to be the most successful team in F1 history , well apart from that I think their general approach has been quite low key .
 
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Both McLarens didn’t even make the start due to electrical issues.

Hamilton and Charles had a great start , Lewis led but then the Mercs just took the piss with this overtake boost, especially George on Lewis.
 
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Congratulations to Kimi Antonelli on his first Formula 1 race win. Well deserved. Made George look ordinary

Congratulations to Lewis on his first Ferrari podium. Some great racing with Charles, but better tyre management let him stay ahead.

Well done Ollie Bearman on a fabulous 5th position.
 
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To say George was disappointed was an understatement. His congratulating of Kimi winning on the radio was miserable to say the least .
 
Well done to Antonelli, hopefully he can use this as a springboard to regularly challenge Russell going forward.

I didn’t watch qualifying, so would be interested in whether it was still a bit sad, or good at this track?

TV graphics upgrade with the battling cars stage of charge, added a bit to the understanding of what is going on I thought.

I’m a bit conflicted about these rules in terms of the races, there’s part of me that’s enjoying the back and forth, the random attacks from anywhere, things like the Hadjar spin which indicate the cars are hard to drive and the fact that it is taking a while for the races to settle down. On the other hand, things like both McLarens not even taking the start and an impression that driver skill has really been neutered are lowering my enthusiasm, there’s something that feels wrong even in the races.
 
Mark Blow said:
To say George was disappointed was an understatement. His congratulating of Kimi winning on the radio was miserable to say the least .
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What do you expect ?

He’s just finished second , these people want to WIN .

He certainly seemed happy enough for Kimi at the post race interview .
 
Sportista said:
I’m a bit conflicted about these rules in terms of the races, there’s part of me that’s enjoying the back and forth, the random attacks from anywhere, things like the Hadjar spin which indicate the cars are hard to drive and the fact that it is taking a while for the races to settle down. On the other hand, things like both McLarens not even taking the start and an impression that driver skill has really been neutered are lowering my enthusiasm, there’s something that feels wrong even in the races.
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I think the cars are harder to drive but more predictable and easier to catch when they 'go'. The seem a little twitchy which is giving the drivers a bit more work plus the energy systems are still very immature systems.

The graphics are an interesting one, we as fans want to see when they are using the overtake or boost modes or even when they are available but that would give their competitors an advantage. I think with DRS everyone could see when they where within the 1 second window at the activation point so we knew it was coming, now with the Overtake mode while we can see they are within 1 second and can therefore harvest and deploy more on the next lap there is no indication of this.

Any team that has got these regs right (Merc) has a big advantage earl on in the season, maybe for the whole season but the others will catch up soon.
 
I think it is quite fortuitous that the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs are cancelled. It means Merc have only three more races to build an advantage if their PU is benefiting from the way compression is measured. Then there are currently 17 races post June 1st, perhaps with a more even playing field.
In my opinion George is not an exceptional talent. He is good and may win one or even two titles but equally none. We will hopefully see a more equal field come Monaco and there after.
 
Sportista said:
Well done to Antonelli, hopefully he can use this as a springboard to regularly challenge Russell going forward.

I didn’t watch qualifying, so would be interested in whether it was still a bit sad, or good at this track?

TV graphics upgrade with the battling cars stage of charge, added a bit to the understanding of what is going on I thought.

I’m a bit conflicted about these rules in terms of the races, there’s part of me that’s enjoying the back and forth, the random attacks from anywhere, things like the Hadjar spin which indicate the cars are hard to drive and the fact that it is taking a while for the races to settle down. On the other hand, things like both McLarens not even taking the start and an impression that driver skill has really been neutered are lowering my enthusiasm, there’s something that feels wrong even in the races.
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It`s interesting the fact that you mentioned how both McLarens failed to even start the race , especially when they have raced in Australia and done a sprint race and shown no such problems. I was just wondering if the engineers have been trying to hack into their customer Mercedes power units to obtain the same factory settings and were locked out. Zak Brown will now have to phone Toto to get the reset codes.
 
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One thing I’ve observed is that Kimi has looked so much more at home in this new Formula ever since testing started.

He does give me early Hamilton vibes - no surprise to see him strong in Shanghai.

I did wonder whether the ground effect regs might have stifled the bit of stardust that Mercedes think he has.

No surprise either seeing Hamilton more at home in these regs.

Just a bloody shame we can’t see Alonso mixing it after another sorry Honda saga so far.
 
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TopClass said:
One thing I’ve observed is that Kimi has looked so much more at home in this new Formula ever since testing started.
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Interesting, it’s clearly an odd thing to say on the day he wins his first race, but my impression is that these rules have tilted the balance more in Russell’s direction (admittedly based on a small sample set).
 
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