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Tyres NorthamptonThe Australian led a dominant McLaren 1-2 finish, the team's 50th, yet it was a slightly fortuitous result for the Woking-based team. A brake issue left teammate Lando Norris limping through the final laps, and he was lucky to finish the race at all.
While the papaya outfit will be relieved that they maximised their point-scoring possibilities, their nearest rivals didn't fare quite so well. Both Ferrari cars suffered post-race disqualifications for technical infringements, Red Bull had only one driver at the front, and Mercedes never looked like a real threat to McLaren's pace. Nonetheless, there was plenty to learn from this year's trip to Shanghai.
The fired-up Piastri set out to make amends for his home-race disaster and put his MCL39 on pole just hours after battling past Max Verstappen for P2 in Saturday's Sprint. Aside from stopping for fresh Pirelli tyres, he never left that P1 position throughout the 56-lap race. Norris, meanwhile, had to go toe-to-toe with fellow Brit George Russell – twice.
Russell, who secured a front-row start, began his Sunday on a tight line into Turn 1 after Piastri's defending left the Mercedes with limited space. The ever-closing angle allowed Norris to swoop around the outside and pick up P2. Although Russell looked like he might have the early-race speed to battle back past, his Mercedes couldn't outdrive the McLaren, and he had to settle for P3.
While the trio enjoyed their podium-position scrapping, there was contact behind among the chasing pack. A fast-starting Charles Leclerc snuck past Verstappen on the inside of Turn 2 but hit the kerb in the process. The resulting understeer sent the Ferrari into the rear tyre of Lewis Hamilton in the sister car and broke Leclerc's front wing endplate.
Although the damage wasn't enough to justify a replacement, the pit lane did see some early activity. Gabriel Bortoleto span on the opening tour and pitted for new tyres, with his manager, Fernando Alonso, following suit a few laps later. Alonso's Aston Martin had a brake fire, and the Spaniard limped back to the pit lane for his second retirement in two races.
Pit stops and strategies provided most of Sunday's entertainment as the Pirelli tyres proved more durable than most expected. The resurfaced Shanghai International Circuit saw drivers nursing out all the medium compound's possible performance in the earlier Sprint race. But that wasn't the case when drivers switched to Pirelli's hard tyre in the grand prix and expected two-stop strategies instead morphed into one-stoppers.
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Piastri was the first of the frontrunners to switch his tyres on Lap 14, with Russell following him into the pits. The undercut worked well, and the Mercedes driver used the fresher tyres' grip to get alongside Norris, who pitted one lap later. In a reversal of the first lap pass, Russell took P2 back from Norris in the opening corners, but the pass wouldn't last long. McLaren's better speed aided Norris in getting back past two laps later. Russell couldn't stop a DRS pass down the start-finish straight against Norris, who soon set about closing the gap to his teammate leader after the unexpected – and unwanted – battle.
Further back, the inverse strategy of starting on hard tyres and swapping to mediums proved successful. Lance Stroll and Ollie Bearman each had the advantage of Pirelli's yellow-walled tyre and low fuel loads in the race's latter half. Bearman, in particular, entertained the fans with overtake after overtake in the lower positions. The British rookie repeatedly used the switchback at the Turn 14 hairpin to his advantage to score points after a P17 start.
The final laps did see some surprise tension after a relatively lacklustre race. Verstappen and Leclerc went wheel-to-wheel for P4, with the reigning champion winning the fight and rescuing some points for his team. The other Red Bull of Liam Lawson had no pace, and speculation has already begun that the Kiwi driver will lose his seat for the next round.
The radio messages and drop in speed from Norris made for the edge-of-seat finale, though. Norris had messaged that his brake pedal was pushing deeper each lap, and his pit wall had no solution. The critical situation ended with Norris' McLaren nursing its way around the track as Russell closed an 8-second gap down to just 1.4 by the chequered flag.
The result means Norris still sits atop the championship standings, and McLaren remains the team to beat. Verstappen's P4 finish has him just eight points behind, yet the Dutchman didn't need to fight past Leclerc for those extra points. Leclerc's Ferrari and Pierre Gasly's Alpine were disqualified for being underweight. Hamilton's excessive plank wear had the seven-time champion excluded from the results, too, in a disastrous day for the Scuderia.
There is now a one-weekend break after this curtain-raising back-to-back start to the season. The Japanese GP comes in a fortnight to kick off the year's first tripleheader, with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia following. Each track offers a notably different challenge, and we should see whether 2025 will be a McLaren vs McLaren battle by the end of the busy April.