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 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.

Running in traffic throughout this race, Charles Leclerc couldn’t manage the front tyres quite as well as Hamilton, complaining his own Ferrari was “undriveable” through the long Turn 13 in the closing stages.

Leclerc lost fourth place early on to an audacious early lunge from George Russell’s Mercedes at the Turn 14 hairpin, and Leclerc never quite managed to regain position.

Yuki Tsunoda beat the second Mercedes of rookie Kimi Antonelli to finish sixth for Racing Bulls, passing Antonelli coming out of Turn 6 on the first lap and then holding the Mercedes at bay throughout.

Pre-event championship leader Lando Norris claimed the final point in an otherwise miserable race in which he lost three places on the first lap after needlessly running wide onto the dirt on the outside of Turn 6.

It was another strange error from Norris, after missing out on taking a comfortable pole on Friday by locking up into the Turn 14 hairpin.

He complained his front tyres were “f***ked” quite early on in this race and told McLaren “I need some help, I’m driving so slowly”.

Later, McLaren then asked Norris if they could help him in some way and whether he had any more pace to attack Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin with. He replied: “No, I’m flat out”, though Norris was at least able to pass Stroll at Turn 14 on the last lap to claim that final point.

In the lower part of the field, the second Red Bull of Liam Lawson and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly were the biggest climbers.

Gasly finished 12th from 17th on the grid, while Lawson climbed from 19th to 14th despite a few wheel banging incidents at the Turn 14 hairpin as he made several late-braking lunges to move up the order.

A late clash between rookies Jack Doohan and Gabriel Bortoleto, both running well out of the points at that moment, is under investigation.