The Dutch Max Verstappentriple world champion and leader of the Formula One World Cupaspires to celebrate his first victory in Chinain a Big prize which returns to the calendar after five years of absence and which will be held on the circuit of Shanghaihome of the first sprint format weekend of the season.
After signing up two Sundays ago at Suzuka he Japanese Grand Prix‘Mad Max’ raised his number of victories in the premier class to 57, improving his own third mark in history: only surpassed by the German Michael Schumacher -with 91 wins- and for the other seven-time world champion, the Englishman Lewis Hamiltonwhich sounded 103 times ‘God Save The Queen’ after an F1 race. But none of them took place in China, in a Grand Prix that debuted in 2004 and that had become the usual venue until the covid-19 pandemic, especially hard in that country, stopped the journey of a test that was the first race to ‘fall off’ the 2020 calendar.
Since 2019, F1 has not been featured on the Shanghai circuit, a 5,451-meter track with 16 corners – five on the left – that this weekend will host the first of the six sprint formats that will be held this year. The others will be those of Miami (USA) -two weeks later-, Austria, USA, Brazil y Qatar.
After the Spanish Carlos Sainz achieved an epic victory in Australia – just two weeks after undergoing emergency surgery for appendicitis – Red Bull brought things back to normal in Japan, where he signed his third ‘double’ of the year, which the Mexican completed for the third time. Sergio Perez, runner-up last year and second overall. In a race in which the talented driver from Madrid -third at the finish line-, the only one who has challenged the hegemony of the powerful Austrian team these last two seasons, signed his twenty-first podium in F1, the third in the three races he has disputed this year.
The other Spaniard, the Asturian double world champion Fernando Alonso -who will be the most requested driver in the press conferences prior to the Grand Prix, since last Thursday his renewal was announced, at least until the end of 2026, with Aston Martin– put in another sensational performance to finish sixth two Sundays ago in Suzuka.
After winning on the circuit owned by his motorist, Honda – which will be Aston Martin’s from 2026 -, Verstappen leads the World Championship with 77 points, thirteen more than ‘Checo’ and 18 ahead of the Monegasque Charles Leclerc, Sainz’s Ferrari teammate: fourth in the competition, with 55 units. Alonso, in a second youth at 42 years old, is eighth, with 24 points. The same ones that English tells George Russell (Mercedes), which, by position, occupies seventh place overall.
Red Bull also leads the Constructors’ World Championship, with 141 points, 21 more than Ferrari; while Aston Martin – “it was the natural decision: to continue racing and continue doing so in this team,” explained the brilliant Asturian driver in the video conference in which Efe participated and in which he announced his renewal – is fifth, with 33. Only one less than Mercedes.
The sprint format has been modified compared to last year. After the first and only free practice, qualifying for the sprint, the ‘sprint shootout’, will be held on Friday (instead of the one decided by the grid for the Sunday race).
The reduced test – which is still one third of the race route – will be held on Saturday morning, hours before the ‘normal’ qualification. The one that sets the ‘pole’ for the statistics and that will order the starting line-up for Sunday’s race. Which, in the case of Shanghai, is planned for a total of 56 laps, to complete a total of 305.2 kilometers.
The sprint continues to distribute extra points, among the first eight classified: eight goes to the winner; seven the second, six the third; and so on, until the eighth, which adds up to one.
No one matches Hamilton’s six victories in China, where Alonso achieved two of his 32 F1 victories: in 2005, the year of his first title; and in 2013, when he signed his penultimate victory in the premier category. Just a month before achieving the last one to date, in the Spanish Grand Prix of that year, which took place in Montmeló (Barcelona)where the tenth of the 24 World Cup races will take place on June 23.
Sir Lewis was the last to win at this track. In 2019. The day ‘Mad Max’ achieved its best result in it, finishing fourth. A position that the Dutch sports super-predator will want to improve this weekend, if possible, by far. EFE (I)
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