McLaren totally dominate as Piastri and Norris complete one-two in China with Hamilton having to settle for sixth

LANDO NORRIS’ title charge was dented by his own teammate Oscar Piastri who bagged his first win of the season in China.

McLaren made another huge statement with a glittering one-two finish in Shanghai ahead of George Russell in third and Max Verstappen in fourth.

Norris, who won the season opener in Melbourne and is the favourite to be crowned champion this season, has Piastri firmly in his rear-view mirror with the Aussie’s chances at lifting the title looking equally as strong.

The two Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc had finished P6 and P5 before they were both DISQUALIFIED after the race, with Hamilton falling foul of excessive skid block wear and Leclerc falling under the minimum weight limit.

Piastri held off Russell to lead into Turn 1, while Norris nipped past the Mercedes into P2. 

Ferrari team-mates Hamilton and Leclerc made contact on a fiery opening lap at the front of the pack while Verstappen dropped back behind them. 

The seven-time world champion said on his team radio: “I’ve been hit by someone” and there was visible damage on Leclerc’s front wing.

Leclerc was told on the radio that he has “20 to 30 points” of downforce loss as a result of the damage to his front wing but he said he can survive until the first stop. 

Piastri settled into the lead of just and by lap three was just over one second ahead of Norris with Russell in third and Hamilton in fourth. 

Fernando Alonso suffered a nightmare race as he retired his Aston Martin on lap four with a brake issue. 

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Over laps 14 and 15 the front runners headed for the pit-lane with Hamilton and Verstappen arriving first and rejoining in 10th and 12th respectively. 

McLaren brought in Piastri and Russell also came in, undercutting Norris, who stayed out an extra lap, as he reemerged from the pits.

By lap 19 McLaren’s one-two was officially restored as Norris nipped past Russell and Alex Albon’s Williams down the backstraight.

There was some debating over the two Ferraris with Hamilton coming on the blower to tell his team that he was struggling and holding Leclerc up. 

The Monegasque 27-year-old was driving like a madman and bizarrely had more pace than his Ferrari team-mate despite his front-wing damage. 

Hamilton ran the show though and was sassy with race engineer Riccardo Adami, saying “I’ll tell you when we stop” as he was catching Russell ahead of him. 

On lap 21, Hamilton finally let Leclerc through with the Ferraris snapping at Russell’s heels.

There are clearly still some teething issues between Hamilton and Adami with their communications. 

Hamilton said on the team radio: “Give me some feedback guys. Come on, I need the feedback of where I’m losing.”

Adami replied and Hamilton snapped, “Yeah, you told me that already”. 

The race transformed into a debate over strategies with talks of ‘Plan A, B, C’ flying over the radios on who would make the first move to stop before a warning of rain arrived. 

There had barely been a peep out of Verstappen throughout and Gianpiero Lambiase said over the team radio “Good pace now Max. Better late than never.” 

“20 laps remaining, come on” as he hunted down Hamilton. 

Ferrari hauled in Hamilton for fresh tyres with him only losing one position to Verstappen in the process. 

Hamilton’s extra pit stop did not work, with him over a whopping 12 seconds behind Verstappen with six laps to go. 

Meanwhile, Norris was struggling with a brake pedal issue and old tyres as he dwindled behind his team-mate Piastri.

Piastri led Norris by over three seconds, whose advantage over Russell was over six seconds, while Verstappen in fifth was snapping at Leclerc’s heels in fourth. 

With three laps to go, Verstappen finally got the job done on Leclerc with the two battling nose to tail in the closing stages. 

Further down the order Haas picked up their first points of the season with Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman finishing P5 and P8 with the Ferrari disqualifications, with the latter coming from P17 as he celebrated International Bear Day.

Kimi Antonelli scored points again with a P6 finish, while Alex Albon finished P7 for Williams after briefly leading the race on his birthday.

Pierre Gasly, who originally finished P11, was also disqualified for being underweight, allowing Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz to move up the order and into the points.

Meanwhile, Liam Lawson’s nightmare start as Verstappen’s team-mate continued as he finished P12 (up three from the disqualifications), in part thanks to a 10-second time penalty for Alpine rookie Jack Doohan after he pushed Isack Hadjar off track at Turn 14.

Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk