A Fair Share of Chaos
A recap of the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix
A lot of the drama in the aftermath of the Chinese Grand Prix centered on one very specific event (I won’t spoil it here, but you can jump straight to the Red Bull section of this post if you want my two cents on it). Having said that, there’s still a lot about the Chinese Grand Prix itself that’s worth discussing. There may have been no rain (although at one point it did look like a possibility), but there was still a fair share of chaos.
McLaren clean up on the weekend, but future messes could be on the horizon.
Oscar Piastri: 1st (Qualified 1st)
Lando Norris: 2nd (Qualified 3rd)
China saw McLaren clinch the 1-2 they looked set to complete in Australia before the rain derailed Piastri’s race. For Piastri, the win in China was a well-deserved result on a weekend where he was consistently the best driver. It wasn’t necessarily “flashy,” but that shouldn’t take anything away from the fact he put in an excellent drive and controlled everything from start to finish.
As for Norris, the current championship leader never looked particularly comfortable in China. However, the important thing—besides the fact he finished the race safely after he experienced brake failure at the end of the main race—is that he left China with the championship lead. Sure, you could criticize Norris all you want about his poor showing in the sprint race (he finished 8th while Verstappen was 3rd), but his runner-up finish in Sunday’s race (Verstappen was 4th) meant he actually gained a point on Verstappen in the standings. Once again, I rest my case on sprint races: they’re fun, but they simply don’t matter.
With both McLaren drivers winning the first two grands prix of the season, a lot of talk has revolved around how the team and both drivers will handle the possibility of the Drivers’ Championship being an intra-team battle. F1 history is rife with acrimonious teammate battles: Prost v. Senna, Vettel v. Webber, and Hamilton v. Rosberg are just a few that immediately spring to mind. Norris and Piastri have downplayed the assumption that their relationship as teammates is doomed to the same fate, but the season is still young.
If there is something to be genuinely concerned about in this McLaren v. McLaren battle, it will most certainly be how McLaren themselves handle things. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown’s post-race comments, in which he appeared to express relief at Norris’ brake failure because it meant the two McLarens weren’t able to fully race each other, doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the team’s ability to handle things long-term. And that’s before we get to the fact that saying your driver experiencing brake failure at a track with a 1.2 km straight “isn’t the worst thing in the world” is WILD.
Mercedes’ solid start continues.
George Russell: 3rd (Qualified 2nd)
Kimi Antonelli: 6th (Qualified 8th)
No one really gave Mercedes a lot of attention pre-season. That was probably because the team spent 2024 playing spoiler rather than contender. And while they haven’t dominated headlines so far, it would be a mistake to take the radio silence as a barometer of how seriously to take them. If you’re some of the other teams on the grid, you might even wish you were getting as little coverage as Mercedes are.
The results speak for themselves: after two races, Mercedes are looking like the team best positioned to challenge McLaren. The pace isn’t quite enough to challenge McLaren across a full race, but Russell’s lap in qualifying to prevent McLaren from locking out the front row was proof that, unlike 2024, Mercedes are starting the season off as legitimate contenders.
Antonelli’s great start to the season will also help Mercedes. His results so far have helped Mercedes solidify their grip as the second-best team on the grid, and that points advantage will come in handy as other top teams start to finally iron out their respective kinks. And even if those teams do get it together, there’s no question that Antonelli himself will also continue to improve as the season continues.
Red Bull’s Lawson saga raises more questions than answers.
Max Verstappen: 4th (Qualified 4th)
Liam Lawson: 12th (Qualified 20th)
As a quick reminder, here is the graphic I made from Part 1 of my RACES post showing how Lawson’s promotion to Red Bull was both historically quick and quizzical:
After China, we now know the answer to the question mark in the graphic: 2.
That Red Bull dropped Lawson for Tsunoda isn’t completely unsurprising. His results pre-promotion didn’t indicate he was ready for the seat. RACES, which accounts for both the fact he was a rookie and that he only raced a quarter of the 2024 season, gave Lawson’s 2024 a score of 27.9 compared to Tsunoda’s 44.1. Having said that, I think even the biggest skeptics of Lawson’s promotion were surprised at just how poorly he performed in Australia and China. Qualifying dead last in both races and struggling to overtake cars that weren’t damaged or had time penalties simply was not going to cut it, no matter how hard it might be to drive Red Bull’s car.
What is surprising, however, is the speed with which Red Bull demoted Lawson. The team made it clear when they promoted him that they were doing so off of potential. That explanation was a handy way of batting away any criticism of how the move didn’t make sense on paper, but it also should have bought Lawson some time to settle in. Getting rid of him after just two(!) races speaks to the exact opposite: that Red Bull believed from the outset that Lawson was already the superior option and that he could immediately perform from the start of the season. But that would mean that we should have seen some indication of Lawson’s potential realized in his results—which wasn’t the case.
It’s clear from this fiasco that Red Bull want to be a “win now” team, which is perfectly ok. I’ve seen some pieces discuss how Red Bull should revert to a “driver development” route where they take a gamble on up-and-coming talent. I think that characterization of this team is a mistake: developing young drivers is the entire point of Racing Bulls, not Red Bull. That Racing Bulls-Red Bull pipeline has been there since Vettel’s promotion in 2009, and will stay there so long as both sister teams remain linked. It’s why almost every driver that has driven for Red Bull since 2009 drove for Racing Bulls first. It’s also why Red Bull’s solution to a lack of suitable in-house candidates to drive along Verstappen in 2021 was to bring in an experienced driver from the outside in Sergio Pérez rather than gamble on promoting an untested rookie.
But if, as the team indicated, they were willing to diverge from that established path and take a chance on Lawson, they should have at least had the guts to commit to it. Sure, there was always the chance Lawson continued to underperform even after the team gave him more opportunities and the team would have had to make the swap anyway. But the difference between having this conversation after six races rather than two is that Red Bull would’ve been given the benefit of the doubt that they tried to help Lawson. A demotion after two races and before there were any breaks for the team to try and help Lawson adjust just comes across as the team not even trying. At the end of the day, It’s this incongruity in Red Bull’s decision making—specifically from Team Principal Christian Horner and Senior Advisor Helmut Marko—that is to blame for this entire saga.
Make no mistake: despite his underperformance, Lawson deserved better, and I hope this nightmare won’t completely derail his entire F1 career before it’s even properly begun. But if the likes of Horner and Marko don’t learn from this, odds are we’ll be seeing some variation of this cycle continue to repeat itself down the road.
Haas say “Ciao!”
Esteban Ocon: 5th (Qualified 11th)
Ollie Bearman: 8th (Qualified 17th)
That’s much more like it from Omakase Formula’s 2024 Team of the Year.
Yes, the Ferrari disqualifications helped inflate Haas’ results for the weekend. Crucially, however, both cars would have scored points even if Leclerc and Hamilton weren’t eliminated. As a midfield team, Haas will gladly take any points offered to them, and I would still be writing that this was a great week for them even if they walked away from China with 7 points. That they were able to walk away with twice that amount means China was less “best-case” scenario and more “beyond-their-wildest-dreams-case” scenario. Let me illustrate it for you another way: Haas scored 14 points in China. Ferrari, Haas’ engine supplier, have scored 17 points across Australia and China.
Before anyone thinks I’m getting carried away, I’m not saying that Haas are objectively on Ferrari’s level. While Ferrari will improve, China will likely be Haas’ high watermark for this season: the 14 points they earned are tied for the second-largest race weekend points haul Haas’ history. What I am saying, though, is that China showed Australia was a one-off rather than the norm. So while it would be foolish going forward to expect more weekends exactly like this one from Haas, it’s not out of the question to expect one or both Haas’ in contention for points finishes.
Last but not least, no recap of the team’s 2025 Chinese Grand Prix would be complete without a shoutout to Bearman saying “Ciao!” after each successful overtake.
Williams continue to shine in the midfield.
Alex Albon: 7th (Qualified 10th)
Carlos Sainz: 10th (Qualified 15th)
Haas may have been the stars of the midfield in China, but Williams having back-to-back solid weekends in Australia and China means they are still the team to beat in the midfield. Sainz scored his first point for Williams, but it was Albon who shone for a second straight race weekend. His incredible stint on the medium tires—he lasted 20 laps while almost everyone else had pitted for hards after 15 laps—meant he actually led the race for one lap. It didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, but for older fans or F1 history buffs, it was definitely nostalgic seeing a Williams (briefly) at the top of the leaderboard again.
Aston Martin does everyone else’s homework.
Lance Stroll: 9th (Qualified 14th)
Fernando Alonso: DNF (Qualified 13th)
Before the race, many were predicting China to be a two-stop race. However, that theory was proven false thanks to Stroll doing the first 36 laps on hard tires while maintaining respectable pace.
The irony, for Aston Martin, however, is that Stroll may have done too well to take advantage of his long stint. As one of the few drivers starting the race on the hards, other teams were most likely looking to Stroll for some clue on how those tires would perform on race day. The fact his performance showed those tires to be a solid and sustainable compound meant almost every other team realized they could abandon a two-stop strategy and keep running the hard tires to the end of the race. And that’s exactly what happened. Without the advantage of taking one less pit stop, the lack of pace in the Aston Martin meant it took Ferrari’s double disqualification for Stroll to end up in the points.
While it’s still been a muted start to the season for Aston Martin as a team, it’s been a decent showing for Stroll individually. The burden to score points has fallen entirely on his shoulders due to Alonso’s bad luck in both races this season (he was forced to retire in China when his brakes caught fire at the start of the race). That Stroll has managed to score points across both races so far is a pleasant surprise, and given there seems to be no solution in sight for the team’s car, Aston Martin won’t be complaining.
Racing Bulls throw away another opportunity.
Isack Hadjar: 11th (Qualified 7th)
Yuki Tsunoda: 16th (Qualified 9th)
I guess lightning does strike twice.
After poor strategy cost Racing Bulls in Australia, the team made another blunder in China by committing to multiple stops, even as Stroll was proving a one-stop strategy was the correct choice. I’m not saying that a team has to blindly follow what another team is doing. After all, race strategy still matters in F1 precisely because there are moments when an unorthodox approach works out. However, that was obviously not the case in China. With Stroll proving the hard tires could last and weather being a nonfactor, the odds of fresh rubber allowing a car to make up the 23 seconds lost in a pit stop were basically zero. Conforming was definitely the way to go in this situation, and making an extra stop cost the team dearly: Hadjar finished 22.554 seconds behind Albon (who remember, finished 7th), meaning a points finish was definitely on the cards had they switched to a one-stop strategy.
China managed not to be a complete wash for Racing Bulls, as Tsunoda’s 6th place in the sprint race gave the team 3 points to put on the board. But that positive was overshadowed by the fact his front wing randomly broke during the main race, exacerbating the team’s strategical error and effectively ruining his race.
Alpine fail to take advantage of chaos.
Jack Doohan: 13th (Qualified 18th)
Pierre Gasly: DSQ (Qualified 16th)
The start of the season has been pretty chaotic, and chaos normally equals opportunity for the midfield and lower-tier teams. Just look at Sauber scoring 6 points in this year’s wet and wild Australian Grand Prix! Yet Alpine have not benefitted at all. Not only are they last in the Constructors’ Championship, they’re also the only team that’s failed to score any points so far this season.
It’s not as if Alpine haven’t come close to the points. Gasly finished 11th in Australia and also initially finished 11th in China, before being disqualified when his car was found to be underweight. But 11th place doesn’t get you points, and unless Alpine can improve their car, their inability to score points so far is a worrying sign for their competitiveness the rest of the season. Yes, there will surely be more chaos. And yes, Alpine could score points the next time chaos hits. But not every race will descend into chaos. If Alpine can’t take advantage when other teams falter, there’s little hope they’ll do so when those teams are firing on all cylinders.
Sauber fall back to Earth.
Gabriel Bortoleto: 14th (Qualified 19th)
Nico Hülkenberg: 15th (Qualified 12th)
Normal business resumed for Sauber in China, though you could argue things could have gone a bit better for them. Bortoleto’s early spin ruined his race, while Hülkenberg sustained damage at the start, undoing the promise offered by a strong qualifying. Nevertheless, Sauber have already done better this year than in 2024, so the team should definitely think of the bigger picture even if they fell back to Earth in China.
Ferrari make history…in all the wrong ways.
Lewis Hamilton: DSQ (Qualified 5th)
Charles Leclerc: DSQ (Qualified 6th)
If you don’t remember what I said about sprint races in the McLaren section of this post, let me reiterate: they’re fun, but they simply don’t matter. And no team in China illustrated that mantra better than Ferrari.
Hamilton winning the sprint? Brilliant fun. Seeing him on the top step of a podium in red (even if it was a sprint) felt like a fever dream.
Did Hamilton winning the sprint matter? Absolutely not. For the first time in F1 history, both Ferrari cars were disqualified from the main race, with Leclerc’s car being underweight and Hamilton’s car suffering from excessive plank wear. It means Ferrari have scored 17 points across two races. By comparison, Red Bull have scored more than double that despite operating with only one driver. Alex Albon has scored 16 points in a Williams.
Things looked odd for Ferrari even before both cars were disqualified. The pace they had in the sprint evaporated, and their main race was characterized by the curious case of Leclerc losing his front wing endplate after colliding with Hamilton—only to be faster afterward.
With an eye on the rest of the season (and 2026), Ferrari didn’t bring significant upgrades to this week’s race in Japan. I can understand the decision, and I’m sure Ferrari will improve as the season continues. After all, it is almost impossible to do worse than a double disqualification. But even though it’s only been two races, it does feel like 2025 is quickly slipping away from them. McLaren are looking dominant, Mercedes have impressed, and Verstappen is still carrying Red Bull on his back. Ferrari not fast-tracking upgrades means they’ll continue to lose ground in the short-term. And as Ferrari themselves know all too well, it’s not guaranteed the upgrades will work when they do arrive.