The Chinese Grand Prix kicked off for 2025 with its only free practice session today. With the Shanghai International Circuit playing host to the first F1 Sprint event of the season, free practice is even more important than normal. Here’s how everything unfolded.
Meet The 2025 F1 Academy Grid Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix
Sprinting Out of the Gates
No time was wasted in this free practice session. Cars came straight out on track as the clock began to tick down.
With a plethora of cars out on track from the word go, there was plenty of action to keep an eye on. Alex Albon had a wide moment partway around the iconic first turn going past a Haas. Liam Lawson had a similar incident but further around the same corner. The Red Bull Racing driver went past an Aston Martin instead of a Haas.
According to the Racing Bulls driver, Yuki Tsunoda, the track at the Shanghai International Circuit is much grippier this year when compared to last year. With less than ten minutes of the session complete, every driver had already posted a time on the leaderboard.
Turn 14
The right-hand corner at the end of the long back straight was a tricky one to manoeuvre for a number of the drivers throughout the session. Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton had a small moment of drifting that compromised his lap. But the seven-time world champion had a much smoother run through the corner on the following lap. This allowed him to make his way to the top of the timesheets.
Sometime later, however, Hamilton would again have Trouble at turn 14, going wide again. McLaren’s Lando Norris and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly would also suffer the same fate, going wide at turn 14, too.
Practice, Practice, Practice.
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll’s Aston Martins have been altered slightly for this weekend. Both cars carry a shamrock and Eddie Jordan’s name on them as a small tribute to the icon of the sport, who sadly passed away prior to the race weekend.
was plagued during part of the session by one of the Racing Bulls for two of his flying laps. The veteran driver didn’t allow this to prevent him from posting some competitive times, though. As good as these were, they weren’t a match for either the Mercedes or the Ferrari.
The Silver Arrows and the Prancing Horses duelled one another for the top spots in the early parts of practice. They would continue to do so until the end of the session.
Gasly complained about an issue with the steering wheel where all of his buttons seemed to be in different places from where the Frenchman was used to. No more about this was mentioned, so when the Alpine driver returned to the pits a short time later, this unique issue must have been resolved.
On one of his return trips to the pitlane, Hamilton cooked his entry a little too much and overshot the entrance slightly.
Elsewhere, a common observation from many of the drivers was that they were each suffering from a significant amount of front left tyre degradation.
Pesky Tailwinds
Red Bull continued to have issues, though not all of them seemed like that much. For example, one came in the form of a small wiggle for Verstappen part way through turn one. With 20 minutes to go, Leclerc would have an off at turn one too. It was a moment that was eerily similar to that of Verstappen’s. But the Ferrari driver’s was stronger and the car got out from under Leclerc, spinning him off the track momentarily. But the Monegasque got back into the swing of things and continued on soon enough.
Various drivers, such as Norris and Alonso, had a moment or two where their cars snapped around the lap. The likely culprit was determined to be the tailwind that had been developing at the track.
Last Minute Drama
Jack Doohan brought out a red flag with just over ten minutes to go in the session. The Australian’s Alpine appeared to die suddenly on him mid-corner coming out of turn ten. Alpine suspected this be caused by either a sudden hydraulic or electrical issue.
The green flag was waived for the session to resume with nine minutes left on the clock. Naturally, this caused a traffic jam in the pitlane as everybody else scrambled to be the first one to get back out on track.
McLaren now got into the mix at the front of the pack, along with Albon and Alonso. In the dying moments of the session, Lando Norris stole first place away from Charles Leclerc. Piastri rounded out the top three. Lewis Hamilton was just behind him in fourth, with his former teammate, George Russell, in fifth.
Nico Hulkenberg dragged his Kick Sauber up into sixth place with a blistering last lap from the German driver. Albon, Alonso, Antonelli and Tsunoda completed the top ten.
Finally, the outliers of the Chinese Grand Prix Free Practice Session were Carlos Sainz in P15, Max Verstappen in a shocking P16 and Liam Lawson down in P18.
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Feature Image Credit: Red Bull Content Pool