Three drivers were disqualified following last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix – the most to have been thrown out of a race in more than two decades.
Both Ferrari drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly lost their finishes after the stewards ruled their cars did not comply with the technical regulations at the end of the race.
You have to go back to the 2004 Canadian Grand Prix for the last time as many drivers were disqualified from the same race. On that occasion a total of four drivers – two from two different teams – lost their finishes.
Williams drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher, plus Toyota duo Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta, were all thrown out of the race for the same reason: The dimension of their cars’ front brake cooling ducts breached the rules.
When both drivers in the same team are disqualified it is often for the same reason, as a technical infringement on one car is likely to be present on its twin. This happened with both Haas cars after qualifying in Monaco last year. However this was not the case for Ferrari last weekend: Leclerc’s car was found to be underweight while Hamilton’s failed an inspection of its plank.
The last team to have two cars disqualified for different reasons at the same race was Arrows at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix. Heinz-Harald Frentzen left the pit exit under red lights and Enrique Bernoldi changed cars after the start of the race.
The double disqualification was a huge blow for Ferrari after they started the weekend strongly. Lewis Hamilton scored his and the team’s first ever victory in a sprint race, and it’s a good thing for him that he did, otherwise he’d be on one point instead of nine at this stage.
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Oscar Piastri won the main event from pole position, taking the third grand prix win of his career. That puts him level with 10 drivers including George Russell, who lost a win to a disqualification at Spa last year.
The other drivers on three wins include Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins, Phil Hill, Didier Pironi and Thierry Boutsen, plus three more names who are particularly noteworthy following the sad passing of former F1 team principal Eddie Jordan last week. Johnny Herbert won the British F3 championship for him in 1987, Heinz-Harald Frentzen enjoyed his strongest championship run with the team in 1999, winning twice, and Giancarlo Fisichella scored his first and the team’s last win at Interlagos in 2003.
Piastri has already had two pole positions for sprint races but claimed his first grand prix pole position last year. That makes him the 106th different driver to take pole (F1 officially counts 107, including Kevin Magnussen who took pole position for the 2022 sprint race at Interlagos but not the grand prix).
The McLaren driver took pole position with the fastest ever lap of Shanghai, at 1’30.641. This was only the second time the course record has fallen since it was established in 2004: Sebastian Vettel previously broke it in 2018.
Michael Schumacher’s race lap record of 1’32.238, set at the inaugural race, still stands. Lewis Hamilton originally set the fastest lap last weekend, moving one closer to Schumacher’s record tally, but lost it to Lando Norris when he was disqualified.
Piastri led McLaren’s 50th one-two finish. The only teams with more are Ferrari (87) and Mercedes (60). He led both of the one-twos featuring himself and Norris. No prizes for guessing which McLaren driver pairing scored the most: It was of course Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost with 14 over two years. Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard managed 13 between them, albeit over a six-year spell as team mates.
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The trio of disqualifications handed Haas their second-best result in a grand prix. Esteban Ocon moved up to fifth, their highest individual finish since Kevin Magnussen in the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix, while Oliver Bearman took eighth. Haas’s sole better finish than this was fourth for Romain Grosjean and fifth for Magnussen in the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix.
Haas and Racing Bulls scored their first points of the season, and the latter their first points under their latest identity. That leaves Alpine as the only team on zero after the first two rounds.
The post-race changes to the order also promoted Carlos Sainz Jnr to 10th place, meaning he picked up his first point as a Williams driver. There is a parallel here: Logan Sargeant scored his first (and only) point for Williams after two of the same drivers, Leclerc and Hamilton, were disqualified after the 2023 United States Grand Prix.
Even before the disqualifications, Alexander Albon had already matched his 2024 points total in just two races. He is now on 16 points.
Two drivers saw noteworthy streaks of out-qualifying their team mates come to an end. Yuki Tsunoda’s nine-race run was halted by Isack Hadjar, while Piastri beat Norris for the first time in eight rounds.
Fernando Alonso out-qualified Lance Stroll for the 14th grand prix in a row, which is the longest ongoing streak of any driver. However Stroll beat him in qualifying for the sprint race.
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Alonso is also the only driver yet to finish a grand prix. But there’s one driver whose season appears to be going worse than his.
Liam Lawson posted his first finish as a Red Bull driver, though a poor 12th was flattered by a total of four penalties ahead of him (in addition to the trio who were disqualified, Jack Doohan picked up a 10-second time penalty). But he can take heart from the fact he is not yet Red Bull’s worst debutant in terms of grand prix results: neither Sebastian Vettel nor Daniel Ricciardo were classified in their first two starts for the team, the latter following a disqualification at Melbourne.
Over to you
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Chinese Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
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