What Shanghai’s sprint race and qualifying tell us about the 2024 F1 Chinese GP

A reshuffle of Formula 1’s rather Marmite sprint weekend format has now come to pass at the Chinese Grand Prix, as the sprint race – won by Max Verstappen, no less – moved to the morning rounds.

Last year’s arrangement of settling the grid on Friday for the grand prix offered the pleasing sibilance of Saturday sprint sessions, but at the detriment of the teams as they were already locked into parc ferme for the rest of the weekend. With minimal practice, any set-up mis-steps could not be rectified unless teams wished to risk a pitlane start, which further damaged a weekend.

Now that qualifying for the grand prix has been shifted to its usual Saturday afternoon slot, the re-opening of parc ferme after the sprint offered a hint of retribution for those who had struggled, providing three hours of tinkering time to iron out the creases.

Naturally, some teams took bigger risks with their spanner-work, and some of those risks failed to pay off as others offered bountiful rewards in terms of grid position.

Thanks to the sprint race, we’ve got an idea of how the teams performed in their initial set-up arrangements – and qualifying has also offered a view into what was changed ahead of the grand prix. Let’s take a look at how that might change things in our race forecast.

Verstappen should have it even easier in the race

The final margin between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in Saturday’s sprint race stood at 13 seconds, considerable given that the Red Bull driver only took the lead at the end of the ninth lap of 19. Although Lando Norris‘ wide moment in the opening corner after being given short shrift by Hamilton handed Verstappen one position, the Dutchman spent the early laps wrestling with his hybrid settings as he struggled with energy regeneration. Complaining of a “flat” battery, Verstappen was told by race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase to switch to “Mode 8”, which appeared to alleviate his deployment issues.

From there, Verstappen easily caught and passed Fernando Alonso, and faced little resistance from Hamilton either as the Briton ceded about a second with a Turn 14 lock-up.

Now that Verstappen is starting from pole and with those deployment issues sorted, the race appears to be awaiting a slam dunk. He maintained a consistent pace among the high 1m40s and low 1m41s, over a second a lap…