F1 2025’s second race of the season in Shanghai was held in vastly different circumstances than Melbourne’s mixed-weather thriller, but this week’s winners-losers section features some familiar figures.
Winner: Oscar Piastri
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
If a composed wet-dry-wet win in Australia showed Lando Norris is driving like a title contender, then team-mate Oscar Piastri has answered with his own statement of intent over the Shanghai weekend. Keen to take revenge for the unlucky off in his home race that dropped him to ninth, the Australian looked the superior McLaren driver all weekend and produced a cool, almost boringly exquisite pole-to-flag drive on Sunday – a maiden F1 pole and a third career grand prix win.
After he bided his time, Norris’ late brake issues prevented him from mounting a challenge, but Piastri’s win never really looked in doubt, having also trumped Norris in the sprint qualifying and race. Norris surely never just assumed he would have it his own way this year, but Piastri has definitely shown signs that he has taken learnings from an inconsistent 2024 campaign and become a stronger contender already. With one win apiece, both drivers’ title campaigns are up and running.
Formula 1Norris had “sketchy” end to F1 Chinese GP with brake issueLoser: Ferrari
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Jade Gao – Getty Images
Lewis Hamilton‘s excellent pole-to-flag win in China’s sprint was a welcome tonic for both fans of the seven-time world champion and the tifosi. But when it came to the main grand prix, Ferrari appeared to fall back to its natural spot in qualifying as the McLarens produced a cleaner Q3 this time. As Charles Leclerc pointed out after the race, it is much harder to perform miracles from the third row, but neither driver looked particularly at ease. They were eventually powerless to keep Max Verstappen at bay after a woeful medium-tyre opening stint for the Dutchman.
Leclerc’s tap with Hamilton at the start could have ended a whole lot worse, but if anyone can explain why the Monegasque still enjoyed better race pace despite a broken front wing – and Ferrari therefore rightfully swapped places – please send your answers on a postcard to Maranello. Ferrari may have avoided this category by hanging on to its 18-point haul on Sunday, but afterwards both drivers were disqualified for two different technical infractions: Leclerc for his car being underweight and Hamilton for excessive skid wear. The good news is there is potential in this SF-25, the bad news is the Scuderia hasn’t been extracting it yet on Sundays.
Formula 1Ferrari’s errors tour: what went wrong at the Chinese GPWinner: Max Verstappen
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
You have to hand it to Max Verstappen. One week after swooping in to smash and grab second in Australia, the Dutchman snatched another result his flawed RB21 didn’t really deserve. Verstappen has developed an air of inevitability, extracting more than the car seems capable of, as we will discuss further below. But amid Red Bull’s woes, Verstappen somehow heads to Japan sitting second in the drivers’ championship.
It remains to be seen how long the four-time champ can stay there, but it won’t be for a lack of trying. Arguably, the way he has been manhandling the 2025 Red Bull is as impressive – if not more – than some of his title-winning campaigns.
Loser: Red Bull
Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
But even the rapid and mercurially talented Verstappen doesn’t have the escape velocity to defy the gravity of Red Bull’s downturn. Incoming Liam Lawson has been going through a shiver-inducing nightmare of a Red Bull stint, and even risks facing the axe as early as Japan, according to our sources.
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But while Yuki Tsunoda may or may not have been a better pick, Lawson’s failure to get up to speed thus far is also Red Bull’s.
Red Bull has burnt several drivers in that second seat now, and it is clear the team has not addressed the car balance woes that frustrated Verstappen and defeated Sergio Perez last year, with Verstappen asserting that Lawson would have been much quicker driving the sister team’s Racing Bulls car.
Likely linked to the car’s lack of consistency, the outfit will have some soul searching to do to address its crippling tyre degradation issues, with Verstappen nowhere in the opening medium-tyre stint in China, shipping an average of around eight tenths to the McLarens. But its season isn’t headed for complete disaster just yet, with much improved pace on hard tyres offering more hope that inherently Red Bull can still get near McLaren, given a much-needed round of updates.
Winner: Haas
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
We were genuinely worried for Haas after a sobering Australia curtain raiser, but the team has reacted to the VF-25’s poor maiden outing in the best possible way with a double points finish. On the standard medium-hard strategy- but with a very early pitstop that worked out well – Esteban Ocon showed solid speed, passing the likes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli with two wheels on the grass to seventh on the road, which became a spectacular fifth after the double exclusion of the Ferraris.
Credit also goes to Oliver Bearman after the British rookie rebounded from a messy weekend in Melbourne. Having qualified further back, Bearman banked on a reverse hard-medium strategy, unknowingly facing the task of an extremely long stint on the more brittle medium tyres. But Bearman held firm and got his elbows out in traffic to pick up a point, which ended up becoming four by the time the Shanghai scrutineers had packed up.
“Everyone has a failure, but failure shouldn’t define you. What defines you is how you get up from that failure, and I think as a whole team we showed that,” a buoyant team boss Ayao Komatsu mused. The aerodynamic problem Haas discovered in Australia is still there, even if it went relatively unpunished in China, but the team capitalised on the opportunities this weekend threw its way. You can’t ask for more than that.
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Loser: Racing Bulls
Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber, Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team, Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
A repeat entrant in this category is Red Bull’s satellite team, which for the second consecutive weekend saw a grand opportunity to bank big points go begging by getting its strategy wrong. Both Yuki Tsunoda and Isack Hadjar stuck to the expected two-stop strategy, instead of following the mainstream’s push towards a one-stopper. Tsunoda could yet have scored points if his vibrating front wing hadn’t alarmingly collapsed, but if you look at where Haas has finished… that should have been you.
There are positives for the Anglo-Italian team, though. There is more evidence its car is fast across different layouts and track conditions, and Hadjar has rebounded admirably from his nightmare Australia exit with a hugely impressive weekend, outqualifying Tsunoda in all three qualifying stages on Saturday.
Winner: George Russell
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Amid all the chatter about McLaren’s formidable speed and Hamilton’s sprint success for Ferrari, George Russell has seemingly quietly nestled himself right in between Verstappen and Piastri in the drivers’ championship with an excellent weekend. Russell had no business splitting the McLarens in qualifying – courtesy of a Norris slip-up at the hairpin – and gave it a good go trying to undercut his fellow Briton in the race.
Russell was powerless to resist the quicker McLaren but finished well clear of Mercedes’ direct rivals to claim his second podium in as many races.
That consistency is going to go a long way when the top teams are so closely matched, and thus far he has had the measure of his inexperienced but fast team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, which he admitted he isn’t taking for granted.
Loser: Alpine
Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Carlos Sainz just about escapes an entry again after not getting up to speed with the Williams as quickly as he would have liked. A little bit more confusing is Alpine, which looked capable of scrapping with Williams and Racing Bulls in Bahrain testing – if not slightly ahead on long-run pace depending on who you ask.
But after the China weekend, Alpine is now the only team not to score points yet, having missed a chance to benefit from Ferrari’s double DSQ by Pierre Gasly‘s car being thrown out as well for missing the weight limit. Jack Doohan is acquitting himself well, being very close to Gasly on one-lap performance, but equally didn’t have the race pace to escape the bottom of the pack and copped a 10-second penalty for elbowing Hadjar out of the way.
Alpine clearly has a much better starting package than last year’s overweight machine, but at the moment it will be frustrated to just be on the wrong side of what is an extremely close midfield.
In this article
Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
George Russell
Oscar Piastri
Ferrari
Red Bull Racing
Racing Bulls
Haas F1 Team
Alpine
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