For the second race running a familiar pattern emerged. Mercedes locks down the front row. Ferrari's blot like lightning from the start line to take the lead with George Russell in second, Antonelli botches the start to lose 4-5 places and then resumes a recovery drive.
Last weekend it was Leclerc who nipped in front of Russell, this week it was Hamilton. A cat and mouse then ensued with both drivers strategising their energy deployment to figure a way past each other. Hamilton in the process ruined his tyres which gave George, who was managing his tyres the ability to fight back and take the lead. Hamilton then proceeded to tussle with his team mate, potentially torpedoing Ferrari's only chance of taking the fight to Russell. At this point of the game, the joint objective should be to take as many points from Russell as possible. Hamilton, in my opinion, could have hung back and let Leclerc have a chance at challenging Russell forcing Russell to compromise his tyres. Who knows, this may have given Hamilton a chance at the win later on in the race.
Antonelli fought back passing cars with relative ease till he clattered with Hadjar earning a 10 second penalty for his favors. The Hulk's retirement brought out the safety car and a free pit stop which earning Antonelli a realtively less detrimental way of serving his penalty. This helped him end up fifth behind Norris thanks to a misjudged overtake by Piastri, who gave up the place on instruction from the pit lane rather than get a penalty.
Back down the order McLaren seem to be the third best with Red Bull coming in fourth - however the Red Bull looked really out of sorts at Shanghai, with Max terming it as undriveable. A messy start which him tumble down the order. After a recovery back to sixth, he then pitted during the safety car for fresh tyres which should have ideally landed him in the top five. However with the mid runners like RB, Haas not pitting and an extended safety car period leaving less than 3 laps of racing, it meant that he finished outside the points in 9th and 10th respectively.
Oliver Bearman is fast emerging as a standout talent continuing from his impressive performances last year. Thanks to him the Haas is regularly in the top 10 in all races so far. The development race is yet to show it's colors so we don't know what the eventual order might be. It's evident though that given the car the kid has terrific talent. Ferrari should pontentially on board him as a driver in the next couple of years.
What is emerging as crucial is the ability to harness excess power from the internal combustion engine as most of the top runners have figured out the electric side of thing more or less equally well. Mercedes extra compression volume when hot is proving critical. However this advantage doesn't seem to have extended to it's customer teams notably McLaren and Williams. Williams really seem to be in a spot of bother this season and don't seem to have figured out the Mercedes power plant all too well.
Onto the main race tommorrow.
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