Alonso The Hero In F1’s Return To China: Dutch Man Wins | 2024 Chinese Grand Prix
After five years away here we are again in China, an hour from the centre of Shanghai at a track much beloved by drivers not called Martin Brundle. I played it so often on Wii F1 2009 that the circuit’s outline was permanently burned into the LEDs and haunted the regular programming. Those two snail shell corners at opposite ends of the circuit, the monster straight where the cars reached unimaginable speeds, and the sound, screaming past like a sneeze falling down a well.
It’s one of Max Verstappen’s favourite tracks too should his on the ground interviews be believed and beyond a minor blip in sprint qualifying it was his weekend. Comfortable victory in the Saturday sprint, a clear pole in race qualifying, and fifty-six victory laps on Sunday. Its near unprecedented domination.
Not that the fans cared because there was a new driving hero in town. Zhou Guanyu is the first Chinese F1 driver and by extension the first to feel the glow of a home race and the pressure of three billion eyes. He had his own Parc fermé on the grid, and was overwhelmed to tears when the crowd sung his name, waving his race number and wearing his colours.
The race itself carried no fortune for Zhou, who may be racing his final F1 season. No amount of cheering can change the fact that he is driving a Sauber and will therefore inevitably meet mishaps beyond his control. The luck ran true at the second round of pit stops which were triggered by his teammate Bottas’ engine conking on lap twenty-one. His early overtakes were undone by spending six seconds in the box during the resulting safety car, emerging near last, eventually finishing fourteenth place ahead only of the three divers with penalties and the three who retired.
With Verstappen’s Reb Bull “on rails” second place went to McLarens Lando Norris, whose brilliant drive to hold off Perez and the Ferraris for second place appeared to mystify the man himself. He’d gone so far as to bet his race engineer both Leclerc and Sainz would pass him over the fifty-six laps but their challenge failed to materialise. This was in part due to the safety car which came out shortly after the first pit window, offering teams the chance for time cheap stops and hard tyres that would last to the end.
This threw planned for medium-medium-soft strategy and its anagrams out the window. Only Magnussen in the Haas had started the race on hards, for good reason. The compound offered little to drivers and Leclerc found himself up to half a second slower than Norris per lap. So ended his challenge, and with it the settled run of results which have tended to revert to team order — Red Bulls, then Ferraris, then McLarens, then Mercedes — regardless of the jumble thrown up by qualifying.
With the possibility of victory as distant as fair Italy, the Ferraris have instead elected to fight each other this season, Sainz with the desperation of an imminently jobless man and Leclerc with the frustration of one whose pride constantly battles a reluctance to risk it all on a dead hand. In the end they were separated by strategy, Sainz clinging on to his geriatric tyres to hold off Russell, who finished sixth, and a charging Alonso who was the biggest provider of entertainment.
During the build-up Zhou Guanyu talked about the first Chinese Grand Prix in 2004, which he watched as a child from the stands at turn one, where the best view of the circuit’s questionable architecture can be had. Fernando Alonso finished fourth.
Twenty years later his powers show no sign of diminishing, though his car’s livery has, and more than any over driver looks like someone racing to enjoy it. Having played every sporting role, the upstart, the champion, the bitter team mate, the villain, the grafter and the underdog, this is perhaps his final incarnation, and by far the most entertaining.
After qualifying brilliantly yet again in third, well enough to put the boss’s son under what could be terminal scrutiny, he then deployed his trademark lightning start to split the Red Bulls going into turn one. While this all but handed this handed victory to Verstappen, who in the five laps it took for Perez to repass built a five second lead that was never threatened, it was the opening gambit of his highlight package performance, even if the actual result was underwhelming.
The main course was his renegade strategy, choosing softs instead of hards under the safety car, meaning he would have to stop again later and re-pass faster cars. He clocked the fastest lap on campaign, offered a candidate for save of the season, and passed both Hamilton and Piastri in the space of a lap, but ultimately only made it back to seventh, having pitted from fifth.
For a change, it was RB who borrowed the travelling wooden spoon from Sauber this week. Both Tsunoda and Riccardo retired after being crashed into, the former by Magnussen and the latter by Stroll, incidents for which both perps received penalties. Stroll had been caught out by the concertinaing of cars at the hairpin of turn 14 at the safety car restart, and went into the back of Riccardo, who in turn did the same to Piastri. Riccardo had looked on for his highest result until then, and with Liam Lawson waiting in the Red Bull academy as Chief Publicity Stunt Driver the disappointment will be all the keener for the Australian.
Piastri was able to continue, and finished eighth for McLaren despite his floor damage. Hamilton recovered from eighteenth on the grid to finish a grumpy ninth and Hulkenberg collected a welcome point for Haas in 10th to back up a strong qualifying on Saturday. Ocon was 11th, followed by Albon, Gasly, Zhou, Stroll, Magnussen, and Sargent.
