“Swings and Roundabouts.”
Hey folks, Dre is back at it again with Part 1 of a DRR Doubleheader weekend. Part 2 will be my first review of IndyCar at The Thermal Club tomorrow.
This was undoubtedly a newsworthy Chinese Grand Prix, one that would likely tell us a lot more about the state of the field, but not without a shock result in the Sprint Race first, and some already telling stories as the sport takes its first off week of the season. But despite all the drama, one man’s cool head prevailed most, and his name was Oscar Piastri. Let’s get into it. And because China’s a Sprint weekend, I do this in Running Diary-style, so Saturday first, okay?
Eddie Jordan, 1948-2025
But before we start, the weekend was overshadowed on Thursday by the tragic passing of Eddie Jordan, former Jordan F1 team boss turned broadcaster, pundit and entrepreneur.
From the time he was a child, Jordan was a hustler, I loved that F1.com mentioned he used to sell fruit to his fellow school kid as a child. He got an itch for karting as a teenager and it changed his life forever.
He scrapped together every penny he had and moved to England to start a racing team, and as it rose through the ranks, he gave many legends their first start in Motorsport, such as Martin Brundle, to Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Ever since Jordan F1 made the grid in 1991, he fought for every sponsor and did everything to keep the doors open. But beyond that, he always did it with a cheeky grin, and a wicked sense of humour.
And eventually, they won. Four times in fact, and even got to third in both the Drivers and Constructors titles in 1999. For an independent team, a miraculous achievement. Given the way the sport is now with its insistence on factory backing and hundreds of millions needed in start-up costs, we’ll likely never see this again in the sport’s history. And he was prepared to do anything to win – The man himself later admitted he offered Senna 50% of his team to join and try to win as partners.
And while the legacy of the team lives on via Force India, Racing Point and now Aston Martin, for me, Eddie’s legacy is beyond that of a team boss.
I love Eddie for his team behind the microphone. My favourite era of broadcasting in F1 was the BBC’s from 2010-2012 when it was the trio of him, Jake Humphrey and David Coulthard. They were fun, cheeky, didn’t take themselves too seriously, bold, but never boring. Yes, Eddie got the majority of his driver switch predictions wrong, but that was part of the charm. It’s the only era of F1 broadcasting I genuinely looked forward to watching every week, and that is an achievement in sports, I can promise you. His Top Gear appearances too, were great.
So many in Ireland owe their F1 fandom to him, and his infectious character, love for life and passion for everything he put his mind to, will be so badly missed in our sport. Rest in Peace, Eddie, we’ll miss you. 🇮🇪
PS: Eddie passed partly due to prostate cancer. 1 in 6 of us in the UK will get it in our lives. If you’re black or have a family history, you’re at even greater risk. Please, if you can, get checked. It may just save a life, or someone else’s, it’s extremely treatable if caught early enough.
Rumours. Demise. Exaggerated.
So of course, I famously said on the podcast with ESPN’s Spencer Hall that I was concerned about Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari switch. If you’re a regular here, it’s a drum I’ve beaten numerous times here in the last few months. So of course, in Round 2 of the season, Lewis Hamilton out of nowhere, dominates a Sprint Race. If this was the WWE, I just got Cross Rhodes’d like my name was Roman Reigns.
It all started on Friday. McLaren looked dominant in practice, but couldn’t get it hooked up in Sprint Qualifying, where a change of approach in SQ3, running two push laps in the eight-minute session instead of one wasn’t the play, with Piastri third and Norris down in sixth. It opened the door for the rest of the field, and Hamilton nailed his lap, beating opportunist Max Verstappen by just 18 thousandths of a second.
In the Sprint itself, Lewis did just enough to pinch Max off the line and then didn’t look back. Verstappen tried what he did in Australia, but goosed his tyres again trying to force a move on Hamilton early, and as a result, dropped late on and conceded second place to Oscar Piastri. For McLaren, the damage was already done, mind – their better tyre management just didn’t come into play, Hamilton emptied the tank for pace once Piastri got ahead. As for Norris, he dropped to ninth after another bad start, and only passed Stroll for the last sprint point towards the end.
Not only was it Lewis Hamilton’s first sprint win, it was Ferrari’s first sprint win, which is startling when you consider this is Year 5 of the sport having the Sprint format. Guess that’s what happens when neither party has really had a definitive #1 car in that timespan. And the best part of it all? Hamilton talking out of both sides of his mouth by saying the haters were “yapping” while also trying to play down how good this performance was because Ferrari themselves had no idea how he pulled it off. Never change, Maranello.
Cool Hand, Strong
As for the race itself, Oscar Piastri scoring a rare quali win over teammate Lando Norris was huge. It was without question Piastri’s biggest weakness in 2024, not because he was getting blown out (The average difference was about two-tenths, not a huge deficit), but the strategic advantage of being the lead car is worth its weight in papaya. He got it right in qualifying, and when Norris got a great start and beat Russell to second off the line, McLaren was off to the races.
The other key difference in the race compared to the Sprint? The tyre degradation wasn’t as bad as expected with the race being far cooler than the Sprint. There were murmurs of three-stoppers after the Sprint yesterday, but no one had run the C2 hard tyre yet. And despite the new resurfacing of Shanghai doing a number on front-left tyres, in the race, the hard was clearly the race tyre of choice, it could comfortably do 30+ laps and it turned the race into a one-stopper at the front.
It’s the beauty of Piastri. You don’t hear from him on broadcasts because he’s just so good under pressure, it feels like he’s been doing this for a decade already and this was his 30th win, not his third. Was more than able to handle his business out there and Norris was never really a threat for the win. Even more so late on with the latter having a brake pedal issue that was sinking into the floor of his car at an alarming rate. That race goes one lap longer and George Russell finishes second. One more, he’s likely off the podium.
It was McLaren’s 50th 1-2 finish and they looked untouchable when it mattered most this weekend. If China was a better indicator than Australia about the state of the season, then I hope you’re all used to your dominance being painted orange instead of blue, because that was a beating by Woking. The most intriguing part? Oscar taking 13 out of the 23 points he lost in Australia already. And with Norris openly talking about not digging the MCL39 and having to adapt to it, it may open the door for a genuine internal title fight…
Verstappen, Lawson And The Terrelle Pryor Problem
The YouTube legend that is Jon Bois made a short video about a relatable problem for the Cleveland Browns, and Red Bull now. Back then, the Browns had so many injury problems at the Quarterback position (Four of them) that they had to play Terrelle Pryor as an emergency QB. The problem? Pryor was such a freak talent, he was the Browns’ #1 wide receiver and offensive threat. By moving Pyror off the O-Line and making him play Quarterback, the Browns had such poor depth at receiver, that moving Pryor made the whole offense even worse.
Bois, compared it to the game of chess. I’m comparing it to Red Bull Racing. And while it may not look like it on the surface, alarms are going off in Milton Keynes.
Max Verstappen, even by his standards, is looking human. Two weekends in a row, he’s scrapping for every point he can muster. He overdid it in the Sprint but still managed third. He had a bad start in the Grand Prix, and on higher fuel, had no pace to combat the degradation on the medium tyres. His pace at the end though, was superb and he came back to beat Charles Leclerc for fourth with a brilliant outside/inside sweep at Turn 2.
Max sits eight points off the title lead after two weekends, in a car that the man himself describes as “fourth-best”, and if you ask the Dutch media, he’s never sounded so despondent about it. I know readers, you’re probably playing the world’s smallest violin in the style of Mr Krabs in Spongebob that one time.
If nothing else, it’s convincing the last few people left in the sport who don’t acknowledge that the man is driving out of his skin. And it’s that very nature of being able to manage the cars’ problems and grind out results, that’s making Liam Lawson look like a scrub.
It is rough out here for the Kiwi. Say what you will about Sergio Perez, but he wasn’t qualifying dead last in back-to-back qualifying sessions. Lawson cannot get his tyres in the window over a single lap and in the race, is only making headlines for passing poor machinery like the Saubers and Jack Doohan’s Alpine. Lawson told the media on Saturday that he needs time to figure out the car, but hasn’t got it. The bad news is… Helmut Marko agreed. It didn’t help that after the race he described Yuki Tsunoda as being in the form of his life. You know, the guy whose only just starting to believe in Yuki in his fifth season.
Red Bull is calling an emergency meeting in the off week between now and the Japanese Grand Prix, and it could be the end of Lawson in the second Red Bull already. It would be another embarrassing PR gaffe and painful driver swap for the organisation, but for me, it begs another question – At what point do we say the driver isn’t the problem?
Red Bull has had issues filling up their second seat since Daniel Ricciardo’s departure in 2018. Since then, they’ve ran through Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Perez and potentially Liam Lawson. Even flirted with the idea of thinking “I can fix him” by bringing Ricciardo back into the fold. The one thing those four names have in common? They’ve proven to be solid to great drivers… outside the Red Bull fold. Gasly has won a Grand Prix and has been good at Alpine since. Albon has carried Williams and so far, has outclassed a multiple-time race winner in Carlos Sainz in the same car. Checo won a GP with Racing Point and had an outstanding body of work in the midfield before taking the chance. And Lawson got to this position by giving Tsunoda a run for his money in a seemingly more versatile Racing Bulls package.
The overwhelming evidence suggests that Red Bull’s development has been fundamentally flawed with Verstappen at the helm. He’s like Marc Marquez during his time at Honda in MotoGP. So excellent at driving around the issues in their machinery that he’s impossible to replicate. Max Verstappen is such a freak, he’s accidentally made his team worse by proxy.
And that’s the pickle that the team is in. If you’re an elite driver, you’re not going to Red Bull and playing second fiddle to the best driver on the grid. If you’re not, you’re going to back yourself to be the man to break the cycle but risk losing your job if you come up short. You HAVE to support Max because he’s so good and he’s your only even slim chance at any kind of Championship. And Lawson so far, has been the worst of the bunch trying to accomplish a near impossible task, one that was asked of so many Red Bull juniors – Try to match one of the greatest ever, after just 11 career starts. Ask Alex Albon how well that worked out for him.
There’s every chance Lawson is going to be collateral for the team’s continued issues as they cling onto competitiveness. But the problems within that team run far, far deeper. It’s what happens when Terrelle Pyror’s your quarterback.
The Lightning Round
Editor’s Note: Pierre Gasly, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were all disqualified after the race. Leclerc and Gasly had underweight cars, while Lewis had a rear skid-block that was too badly worn, ala Austin 2023. The most amount of disqualifications in a race since the 2004 Canadian Grand Prix. Woof. It means Haas have their second best day EVER as a team with Ocon 5th and Bearman 8th, Lance Stroll gets 2 points for ninth, and Carlos Sainz gets his first point as a Williams driver. As a Sebastian Vettel fan, all I’m saying to the new Hamilton/Ferrari fans is… first time?
Lewis Hamilton goes from winning the Sprint, to being beaten straight-up by Charles Leclerc with a broken front wing he gave himself by hitting the man on the opening lap. Talk about coming back to earth with a thud.
Very quietly, George Russell has driven extremely well so far this season, and Mercedes has made some progress. Less than 10 seconds off the win, if that’s consistent, is a step in the right direction. Across the garage, who the fuck is voting Kimi Antonelli for Driver of the Day? I want words.
This marks the second weekend in a row where Racing Bulls have thrown way chunky points via piss-poor strategy. The two-stopper was not the play here. And that was before Yuki Tsunoda’s self-breaking front wing.
Welcome back, Haas. They were so shocked about how poor they were in Australia’s high-speed corners (Sometimes as much as four-tenths per corner), that they thought the car was broken. Esteban Ocon was superb in getting to seventh fifth place, and Ollie Bearman went from 17th to 10th eighth on the reverse one-stopper to score a point. Much better while they try to find a fix to their floor problems.
How badly is F1 Twitter seething at the fact that Lance Stroll is giving them zero material to work with so far this season? Unlucky, Fernando. Aston Martin looks mid enough though that I wonder if they’ll be pushing Newey to work on this year’s car before the season’s over as 5th looks a long way away right now.
Alpine is still without a score and dead last in the Constructors. Gasly’s driven well but been unfortunate, they had to change the structure of their rear wing to compensate for the new FIA’s new flex-test, and Jack Doohan’s racecraft looks janky. 10 seconds for running Hadjar off the road, and lucky not to get 10 more for moving under braking. Ungood.
The Verdict: 5/10 (Mid) – Muhmuhmuh, mid. China’s rarely a classic and this was no exception. The tyre deg being better than expected was probably the worst thing that could have happened to it, it took the wind right out the strategic sails on this one and led to the front of the race being rather processional. Some decent passing at the back, mind you. See you in Japan.
