Dominant first Ferrari win for Hamilton in F1's Chinese GP sprint

Lewis Hamilton converted his first Ferrari pole position in Formula 1 into his first victory for the team, defeating the challenge of old rival Max Verstappen to win the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix sprint race.

There was a point in the middle of this 19-lap sprint where Verstappen’s Red Bull had Hamilton’s Ferrari firmly in its sights and within DRS range, but in a race dominated by graining of the front tyres Verstappen crucially lost grip before he could attack the Ferrari on the back straight.

Hamilton also suffered with his front tyres in the early part of the race, but took the benefit of running in clean air throughout to bring them back into good enough shape to reel off a string of fastest laps in closing stages and close out the victory, in what his engineer Riccardo Adami called “a masterclass in tyre management”.

Chinese GP sprint points-scorers

1 Hamilton
2 Piastri
3 Verstappen
4 Russell
5 Leclerc
6 Tsunoda
7 Antonelli
8 Norris

Verstappen's pace dropped off badly in the second half of the race. He complained “both of my fronts are dead” before Oscar Piastri’s McLaren passed the Red Bull into the Turn 14 hairpin to take second place with four laps left.