Archive March 25, 2025

McLaren’s victory at the start of the season earned Oscar Piastri pole position and the victory in the Chinese Grand Prix.

Lando Norris placed second, completing the top three with George Russell’s Mercedes.

Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton won the sprint race on Saturday but he and team-mate Charles Leclerc were both disqualified from the main grand prix.

How long do you anticipate Red Bull will take to get Liam Lawson up to speed before switching? – Jon

Their patience appears to have run out, in some ways. This week, Red Bull will be discussing Lawson’s future, and it’s possible that he won’t compete in the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix.

If they go through with it, it will be regarded as a quite remarkable decision, which raises serious questions about the management at Red Bull Racing.

Let’s go back and explain why.

Sergio Perez was signed to a two-year contract extension with the Red Bull team in May of last year, ending his 2026 contract there.

This was despite the fact that the Mexican was struggling as Max Verstappen’s team-mate, and that the 2024 season looked to be going the same way as the year before – a bright start from Perez, and then an alarming slump in form.

Carlos Sainz, who had left Ferrari to sign Lewis Hamilton, might have been a free agent. However, he remembered the tensions between the Sainz and Verstappen camps at Toro Rosso in 2015 and made up his mind to return.

Re-signing Perez, Horner’s theory went, would give him the confidence to recover his form.

The strategy was utterly unsuccessful. Despite Verstappen winning a fourth world title by 63 points, Perez’s performances fell off a cliff, and the team fell to third place in the constructors’ championship.

Verstappen only won twice in the final 14 races of the year because the car lost competitiveness and became difficult to drive. So do Perez’s difficulties.

However, Helmut Marko, Horner, and Helmut Marko, the team’s motorsport adviser, decided Perez had had his day and needed to change.

They paid him off – to the tune of many millions of dollars – and signed Lawson.

Because they thought he had a mental toughness lacking the Japanese, they chose the New Zealander over Yuki Tsunoda, their much more experienced team-mate at the junior Racing Bulls team.

The season has started badly for Lawson. He qualified 18th at the season-opener in Melbourne, where he crashed out of the race, and last in both the sprint and grand prix in China, failing to make much progress in either event.

Verstappen, however, struggles at least partially, too. He does not conceal his belief that the car is the top four teams, as he did in China, where he made a strong suggestion that it might not be as fast as the Racing Bull.

The Red Bull is nervous on corner entry, has mid-corner understeer and is snappy on exits. And it doesn’t seem to the team to be able to fix it.

Verstappen enjoys a sharp front end, but he doesn’t want the car to act in this way. But he can cope, and get a lap time out of it. Lawson is unable to, at least not at this point.

Lawson spoke in Chinese as though he already recognized the writing on the wall.

“It’s just (got) a very small window”, he said. You know, driving is difficult, but it’s “hard” to get it in that window. With the passage of time, I’d like to say that I simply don’t have the time to do that. It’s something I need to get on top of”.

The management will need to do some serious explaining if Red Bull decides to drop him after two races.

They will be questioned if signing him in December was the wise choice. Why is that the case now? If Tsunoda is the driver replacing him, the question becomes even starker.

That’s probably too early if they instead choose Frenchman Isack Hadjar, who impressed as Tsunoda’s rookie team-mate in the first two grands prix.

Why blame the driver, if the car appears to be the first-order culprit, as it should be?

Ferrari was responsible for the double disqualification, but was it simply unlucky and out of their control? – Ozan

Formula 1 is a frontier-living organism. Teams must push their cars as far as they can within the technical regulations as they can to win because that is what everyone is doing.

The line between success and failure is so fine. And two of the main performance differences are ride height and weight.

In Formula One, one kilogram of extra weight costs about 0.0335 per lap. Multiply that by the 56 laps of the Chinese Grand Prix, for example, and it’s two seconds of race time. Not much, but it could determine whether you win or not, or whether you are better or worse.

That serves only as an example of why cars are edged. And when you run to the edge, mistakes can happen.

On Sunday, Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari was found to be 1 kg underweight.

Ferrari attributed this to the switch to a one-stop strategy, which meant the car ran the race with less tyre rubber than the anticipated two-stop, and that marked the difference between exceeding the maximum weight limit and falling below it.

Of course, other teams also switched to a one-stop, without ending up underweight. Mercedes and George Russell faced the same fate last year in Belgium after being disqualified for victory.

Lewis Hamilton’s skid blocks were too worn. Again, it’s the sort of thing that can happen – indeed, it happened to Hamilton when he was at Mercedes in the 2023 US Grand Prix, and Leclerc in the same race.

Again, it’s about limiting the options. As long as teams can maintain aerodynamic stability, the lower these current cars can typically be driven, creating the most downforce.

But run them too low, and they risk wearing the floor excessively – and that’s what happened.

Aside from the McLaren, who has impressed you the most at this very early stage? – SJM

The season has already started off very well for Racing Bulls. Tsunoda qualified fifth in Australia, and his team-mate Hadjar was seventh on the grid and Tsunoda ninth in China.

Although the cars have fared a little wrong, Verstappen even suggested that it was superior to the Red Bull in China.

Racing Bulls use a good deal of Red Bull components, but since Red Bull have started to struggle, it may not be as much as it once did in theory when rival rivals worried about the close relationship between the two teams.

In the cockpit, Hadjar, notwithstanding his crash on the formation lap in Australia, has made a strong first impression.

How did Lewis Hamilton’s sprint and qualifying times differ so much? Or how did the other drivers close the gap in such a short space of time? – Ash

There are several reasons for this. Ferrari hit the ground running in China and landed on a decent set-up for sprint qualifying in the single practice session before it.

Hamilton also gave a fantastic performance on a track where he has always done well to take pole.

However, other teams involved had some underachievement.

The McLaren was the fastest car in China and Oscar Piastri was more comfortable in it than Lando Norris. In sprint qualifying, both teams finished third and sixth on the grid.

At the first corner, Hamilton converted pole to lead, and he then made the most of the opening opportunity.

He drove superbly, but he was protected from Piastri for much of the race by Verstappen, who the Australian did not pass until four laps from the end, by which time Hamilton had built a lead too big to overhaul.

After the sprint, the teams can switch up their setups, and it appears that a more natural order has already been established by the time of the grand prix qualifying.

According to Hamilton, “We had a pretty decent car in the sprint, and then we made some changes to try to move forward and improve the car, but it ultimately made it worse going into qualifying and then it was even worse in the race.”

Among those changes seems to have been lifting the car slightly, which Hamilton more or less confirmed after the race: “I don’t know who said we lifted the car, but we made some other changes, mostly, as well as that, but not massively, just small amounts”.

Even though Leclerc had a damaged front wing, he was faster than Hamilton in the grand prix. And Hamilton’s car still wore the skid blocks too much despite the modifications. Hence his disqualification.

Is it possible that all information is passed by radio or telemetry as the drivers enter the pit wall? – Phil

The only useful information about the drivers is that pit boards provide, primarily laps left, with other important information. The front and back drivers’ gaps are frequently included as well.

They’re also there as a back-up in case the radio fails.

Oscar Piastri converted pole position to win the Chinese Grand Prix, as McLaren made it two wins from two races at the start of the season.

Lando Norris finished second to make it a McLaren one-two, with George Russell’s Mercedes completing the top three.

Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton won the sprint race on Saturday but he and team-mate Charles Leclerc were both disqualified from the main grand prix.

How long do you think Red Bull will give Liam Lawson to get up to speed before contemplating a switch? – Jon

It rather looks as if their patience has already run out. Red Bull are to discuss Lawson’s future this week, and there is a strong possibility he will be dropped for the next race in Japan.

If they go through with it, it will be regarded as a quite remarkable decision, which raises serious questions about the management at Red Bull Racing.

To understand why, let’s rewind.

In May last year, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner decided to re-sign Sergio Perez on a two-year contract taking him to the end of 2026.

This was despite the fact that the Mexican was struggling as Max Verstappen’s team-mate, and that the 2024 season looked to be going the same way as the year before – a bright start from Perez, and then an alarming slump in form.

Horner could have brought in Carlos Sainz, who was a free agent following Ferrari’s decision to sign Lewis Hamilton. But he remembered the tension between the Sainz and Verstappen camps when they were team-mates at Toro Rosso in 2015 and decided he did not want go there again.

Re-signing Perez, Horner’s theory went, would give him the confidence to recover his form.

The strategy failed spectacularly. Perez’s performances fell off a cliff, and the team slumped to third in the constructors’ championship despite Verstappen winning a fourth world title by 63 points.

Verstappen only won twice in the final 14 races of the year because the car lost competitiveness and became difficult to drive. Hence Perez’s struggles.

But Horner and Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko decided that Perez had had his day and they needed to make a change.

They paid him off – to the tune of many millions of dollars – and signed Lawson.

They picked the New Zealander over his much more experienced team-mate at the junior Racing Bulls team, Yuki Tsunoda, because they believed he had a mental toughness the Japanese lacked.

Lawson has had a dire start to the season. He qualified 18th at the season-opener in Melbourne, where he crashed out of the race, and last in both the sprint and grand prix in China, failing to make much progress in either event.

But Verstappen is also struggling – at least relatively. He is not hiding his belief that the car is the slowest of the top four teams – indeed he implied pretty strongly in China that he believed it may not be as fast as the Racing Bull.

The Red Bull is nervous on corner entry, has mid-corner understeer and is snappy on exits. And the team don’t seem to know how to fix it.

Verstappen likes a sharp front end, but he doesn’t want the car to behave like this. But he can cope, and get a lap time out of it. Lawson cannot, at least not yet.

Lawson was talking in China as if he already knew the writing was on the wall.

“It’s just (got) a very small window,” he said. “It’s hard, you know – it’s hard to drive, to get it in that window. I’d like to say that with time that’ll come – I just don’t have time to do that. It’s something I need to get on top of.”

If Red Bull drop him after two races, the management will have some serious explaining to do.

If signing him was the right decision in December, why is it the wrong decision now, they will be asked. If Tsunoda is the driver replacing him, the question becomes even starker.

And if instead they choose Frenchman Isack Hadjar, who has impressed as Tsunoda’s rookie team-mate in the first two grands prix, well, that’s surely too early.

Equally, if the first-order problem is the car – as it seems to be – why blame the driver?

Are Ferrari at fault for the double disqualification, or was it just unlucky and out of their control? – Ozan

Formula 1 lives on the edge. To win, teams have to push their cars as close to the limit of the technical regulations as possible – because that is what everyone is doing.

The line between success and failure is so fine. And weight and ride height are two of the key performance differentiators.

One kilogram of extra weight in F1 costs approximately 0.035secs a lap. Multiply that by the 56 laps of the Chinese Grand Prix, for example, and it’s two seconds of race time. Not a lot, but it could be the difference between winning and not, or one place higher or lower.

That’s just to explain why cars are run to the edge. And when you run to the edge, mistakes can happen.

In the case of Ferrari on Sunday, Charles Leclerc’s car was found to be 1kg underweight.

Ferrari ascribed this to the fact that they had switched to a one-stop strategy, so the car finished the race with less rubber on the tyres than had they run the expected two-stop, and that was the difference between being over the minimum weight limit and under.

Of course, other teams also switched to a one-stop, without ending up underweight. But exactly the same thing happened to Mercedes with George Russell in Belgium last year when he was disqualified from victory.

As for Lewis Hamilton, his skid blocks had worn too much. Again, it’s the sort of thing that can happen – indeed, it happened to Hamilton when he was at Mercedes in the 2023 US Grand Prix, and Leclerc in the same race.

Again, it’s about pushing the margins. Generally with these current cars, the lower they can be run, the more downforce they can create, as long as teams can keep the aerodynamics stable.

But run them too low, and they risk wearing the floor excessively – and that’s what happened.

Aside from the McLaren, who has impressed you the most at this very early stage? – SJM

Racing Bulls have had a very strong start to the season. Tsunoda qualified fifth in Australia, and his team-mate Hadjar was seventh on the grid and Tsunoda ninth in China.

The races have gone a bit wrong so far, but the car looks strong – in China, Verstappen was even implying it was better than the Red Bull.

Racing Bulls use a fair few Red Bull parts but since Red Bull have started struggling that is not necessarily the boost it was in theory a year or two ago, when the close relationship between the two teams was causing concern among rivals.

In the cockpit, Hadjar, notwithstanding his crash on the formation lap in Australia, has made a strong first impression.

How was there such a big gap between Lewis Hamilton’s sprint pace and qualifying pace? Or how did the other drivers close the gap in such a short space of time? – Ash

There is a combination of reasons. Ferrari hit the ground running in China and landed on a decent set-up for sprint qualifying in the single practice session before it.

On top of that, Hamilton put in a brilliant performance on a track where he has always excelled to take pole.

But there was an element of underachievement from other teams involved.

The McLaren was the fastest car in China and Oscar Piastri was more comfortable in it than Lando Norris. Both made mistakes in sprint qualifying – so they ended up third and sixth on the grid.

Hamilton converted pole into a lead at the first corner and then used the benefit of free air to maximise his opportunity.

He drove superbly, but he was protected from Piastri for much of the race by Verstappen, who the Australian did not pass until four laps from the end, by which time Hamilton had built a lead too big to overhaul.

The teams can change their set-ups after the sprint and it looks as if, by the time of grand prix qualifying, a more natural order emerged.

As Hamilton put it: “We had a pretty decent car in the sprint, and then we made some changes to try and move forward and improve the car, but it made it quite a bit worse, basically, going into qualifying – and then it was even worse in the race.”

Among those changes seems to have been lifting the car slightly, which Hamilton more or less confirmed after the race: “I don’t know who said we lifted the car, but we made some other changes, mostly, as well as that, but not massively, just small amounts.”

They did not work – team-mate Leclerc was faster than Hamilton in the grand prix even though he had a damaged front wing. And the changes were not enough to stop Hamilton’s car wearing the skid blocks too much. Hence his disqualification.

Why do teams put a board out from the pit wall as the drivers go through; surely all information is passed by the radio or telemetry? – Phil

Pit boards are there to give non-essential information relating to the drivers – primarily laps remaining. The gap to the drivers in front and behind are often also included.

They’re also there as a back-up in case the radio fails.