Chinese Grand Prix: Sprint Race / Qualifying Recap

Magnussen started the Sprint from P12, gaining two spots at the start, then settling into P11 for the majority of the Sprint. The Dane vigorously defended his position from the Sauber of Valtteri Bottas who had DRS throughout in P12. Magnussen climbed to P10 three laps from the end with the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso retiring. Hulkenberg took the start from P13 but lost a couple of positions on the opening laps. Having held P15 through to lap nine, the German then suffered from tire degradation and dropped down the order to finish P19 at the checkered flag.

Saturday afternoon saw Hulkenberg and Magnussen turn their attention to qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix – securing 9th and 17th respectively on the grid for Sunday’s race.

Hulkenberg made it all the way through to Q3 and the top 10 in qualifying after comfortably steering his VF-24 through Q1 (P6) and Q2 (P9) – the turnaround in set-up and performance in stark contrast to his earlier Sprint outing. A final Q3 lap of 1:34.604 on fresh Pirelli P Zero Red softs was good for P9 and a fifth-row grid slot for Sunday. Magnussen exited qualifying in Q1 – traffic a factor on his final flying run on new softs – a best lap of 1:34.742 earning P17.

Nico Hulkenberg:

“We dropped down the field quite dramatically in the Sprint – there was nothing obvious, no damage on the car. In the pack, right after the start, I think we ruined our tires over the first few laps. We were just driving in the dirty air of many cars – so we paid a big price for that. After that I hit degradation and just went backwards. Maybe we did a wrong turn on the set-up after yesterday going from FP1 into Sprint quali. We intended to make the car better, but it reacted in a strange and different way to what we expected in the Sprint. Then I was very happy with quali, it was very clean, not sure I could have asked for more in terms of execution and my laps. We remedied things from the Sprint, things were more in-line with what we expected – so I’m happy. I expect a tough race tomorrow, I think it will be a stretch for us, but I look forward to it.” 

Kevin Magnussen:

“To keep P10 in the Sprint was a pretty tough task – it seemed like the RB and the Sauber were a little bit faster than us. So, hopefully we can work on that for tomorrow’s race, we’d like to be able to keep the tires alive a little bit longer. In quali, I only got one lap on the first run as I was called onto the weigh-bridge, we didn’t have time to go out again on that first set of tires. I only had one lap on my second set, and Sargeant went off at Turn 8 in front of me, I lost a little bit of time there, and then at Turn 14 Tsunoda got in the way. These days it’s just so tight and here we find ourselves out in Q1. I feel like I was a little bit unlucky.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

“The Sprint was a bit mixed. Kevin had a half-decent race. In terms of speed – we’re missing, but with tire degradation we weren’t too bad. With Nico it was another story. We have a pretty decent idea as a team why Nico’s degradation was so much worse than Kevin, but also why Kevin’s pace wasn’t great. With this year’s regulations we can change the car set-up between Sprint and qualifying, so we made some adjustments. In qualifying this afternoon, car performance over one lap on the soft tire was pretty good. We’re targeting to get into Q3, and with Nico we achieved that today – being the fastest car from outside the top five teams. That’s the best we can do, so it was a good job. On the other side, we couldn’t make it into Q2 with Kevin. He was a bit unfortunate in terms of timing, but we could have done a bit better in terms of preparing him better for his second run – we just missed it by a tiny margin. Those margins are tight these days, we just have to aim to do the perfect job. So – bit mixed, but it’s good that we showed the potential of the car with Nico, we’ll see what we can do from there tomorrow.”

Today's Data

Event: Sprint Race / Qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix – Saturday April 20
Location: Shanghai International Circuit 
Layout: 5.451-kilometer (3.387-mile), 16-turn circuit
Weather: Partly Cloudy
Air Temps: 21 degrees Celsius (69.8 degrees Fahrenheit)
Track Temps: 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit)

Sprint Race Rundown (19 laps): 

Magnussen: 10th overall 
Hulkenberg: 19th overall
Sprint Winner: Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing

Q1 Qualifying: 18-mins with all Drivers – Top 15 Advance to Q2

Hulkenberg: 6th overall (1:35.068) – Advanced to Q2
Magnussen: 17th overall (1:35.516) 
Fastest: Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing (1:34.742)

Q2 Qualifying: 15-mins – Top 10 Advance to Q3

Hulkenberg: 9th overall (1:34.667) – Advanced to Q3
Fastest: Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing (1:33.794) 

Q3 Qualifying: 12-mins – Top 10 Drivers

Hulkenberg: 9th overall (1:34.604) 
Pole Winner: Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing (1:33.977)