Piastri wins Chinese GP as Norris survives brake scare for McLaren 1-2

Oscar Piastri converted his first Formula 1 pole position into victory in the Chinese Grand Prix, leading home a McLaren 1-2 as Lando Norris nursed his car home in the closing laps with a brake issue.

In what was a cagey race at the front as the durability of the hard tyre made a one-stop strategy viable, Piastri ultimately had a comfortable margin throughout over team-mate Norris.

But the final winning margin of 9.748 seconds was flattered by Norris having to manage an increasingly critical brake problem late in the race, one that required him to back off significantly on the final two laps.

Piastri did have to resist a challenge for the lead into the first corner from fellow front-row starter George Russell, but the Mercedes ended up on a compromised inside line and that allowed the second McLaren of Norris to sweep through into second place.

The leading three remained in that Piastri-Norris-Russell formation throughout the first stint, though Russell did get back ahead of Norris briefly by stopping a lap earlier than the McLaren and undercutting his way through at his one and only pitstop.

The McLaren's early-2025 pace advantage ultimately told though, as Norris - with the assist of DRS - got back through into a net second place with a move into the first corner on lap 18 of 56.

As it became increasingly apparent that the hard tyre would hold up and the strategic headache of whether to stop again was removed, giving Piastri a clear run to a third grand prix victory, McLaren did still endure an anxious end to the race as Norris slowed to manage his brake issue.

That in turn brought Russell back into play as Norris lost more than six seconds across the final two laps, but he ultimately had enough in hand and crossed the line 1.349s ahead of the Mercedes, with Russell claiming a second third-place finish in the first two grands prix of the season.

What had looked like an anonymous race for Max Verstappen came good in the closing stages, as he passed Charles Leclerc late on to claim fourth place.

Verstappen had a snap of oversteer through Turn 1 at the start, dropping him from fourth to sixth behind both Ferraris, and he quickly fell away from the leading group - at one stage running five seconds off the back of that train.

But by the middle part of his second stint the world champion had begun to reel Lewis Hamilton in, before the Saturday sprint race winner pitted for a second time, and in the closing laps the Red Bull had a clear pace advantage over Leclerc's Ferrari which had been without its front-left endplate from the start of the race after clobbering Hamilton's right-rear tyre after a moment over the kerb at Turn 2.

Leclerc spent the opening stint behind Hamilton but appeared the slightly faster of the two Ferraris with that front wing damage, and the team elected after the first round of pitstops to swap the pair so Leclerc could attempt to close in on the top three.

Though he briefly got within a second of Russell he never mounted a serious challenge before fading, though Ferrari did not elect to swap him back behind the two-stopping Hamilton, who crossed the line 2.170s behind Leclerc in sixth.

Though the question of whether to stop for a second time offered some intrigue at the front, it was in an ultra-tight midfield where points were won and lost on that decision.

Haas was nowhere at the season-opening Australian GP last weekend but it executed its strategy perfectly to come away with a double-points finish.

Esteban Ocon held 10th in the opening stint and was among the first in the midfield to pit from mediums onto hards. He completed a 45-lap stint on that second set of tyres, during which he overtook Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes, to finish seventh on his second grand prix start for the team.

Team-mate Ollie Bearman ran an opposite strategy, running a 36-lap-long first stint on hards before switching to mediums and carving his way back through the pack.

He ultimately came home in 10th, with Antonelli and Alex Albon - who ran longer than most on mediums at the start of the grand prix - between the two Haases.

Bearman's final overtake came after an entertaining back-and-forth with Pierre Gasly, who recorded a second 11th-place finish at the start of the season.

It means Alpine is the only team yet to score a point this season.

Lance Stroll ran even longer than Bearman on the hards and ultimately ended up with too much ground to make up in not enough time at the end of the grand prix as he finished 12th, while Racing Bulls' race utterly imploded.

Yuki Tsunoda and Isack Hadjar ran eighth and ninth in the opening stint and Tsunoda had been ahead of Ocon when the team opted to bring him in for a second time.

By that point it had become clear that the hard tyre would hold up and he made little progress before elements of his front wing folded in on themselves under load in the wake of Carlos Sainz's Williams.

That forced Tsunoda to stop for a second time and he ended up 19th, with Hadjar 14th in the final classification having been frustrated by the Alpine of Jack Doohan in the closing stages.

Doohan's robust defence included running deep into the Turn 14 hairpin, a move that earned him a 10-second penalty that dropped him behind Hadjar and the second Red Bull of Liam Lawson in the final classification.

Lawson, who is already at risk of losing his seat two rounds into the season, did start from the pitlane but completed his anonymous weekend by finishing more than a minute behind team-mate Verstappen.