Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
A star of the sport making a successful start with the championship’s most historic team is positive news for F1, says @Sham:
I admire Lewis having the self belief to go up against Leclerc at Ferrari – he’s been there a long time and is blisteringly quick.
If he beats Charles over his first season at the team, that will be mightily impressive for me. It’s very early days, but the signs are good that his recent struggles are mostly being unable to adapt to the poor Mercedes car over the last 3 seasons.
It’s good to see him so positive again, and I feel like the sport needs a feel good story – the only stories over the last few years have been controversy and political.
Actually, I feel that the world needs a feel good story – there is so much negativity in every aspect of life right now.
@Sham
Social media and links
Formula 1 to pay tribute to Eddie Jordan ahead of Chinese GP (Reuters)
‘The one-minute tribute will see all teams gathering on the grid beneath the podium.’
Sprint race / qualifying recap (Haas)
‘For qualifying we probably changed about three quarters of the car, it was a huge turnaround from the team. They did a really good job to improve the car from the sprint (race) to where it is now – so I’m very happy with that.’
Solid points (on) Saturday in Shanghai (Mercedes)
Andrew Shovlin: ‘We saw in this morning’s sprint (race) that graining was perhaps even worse than most expected. Cars were having to manage heavily, and as soon as you pushed the tyre, it began to suffer. That is useful learning for tomorrow’s grand prix where the finishing result is likely to be dictated by how well you are able to manage the tyres, particularly the front-left.’
A first for Lewis (Ferrari)
Frederic Vasseur: ‘Today’s qualifying was really difficult to read and several teams, including ourselves, experienced a swing in performance. We were strong in Q1 before struggling in Q2 and in Q3 we came within three tenths of pole, most of the time lost in the final sector.’
Sprint and quali complete in Shanghai (Williams)
‘We didn’t have the car in the right place this morning and in the sprint race, we suffered more graining than near enough all the cars around us and had to try our best to manage it. We made some quite significant set-up changes for both drivers for qualifying and for the grand prix, which should put us in a better position.’
HSBC returns to F1 after 21 years (SportBusiness)
‘Global bank HSBC will be visible on a Formula 1 car for the first time since 2004 when its logo joins the Racing Bulls car, SportBusiness understands.’
‘The happiest I’ve ever been’ – Jubilant Palmowski reflects on ‘whirlwind’ race one win in Shanghai after overcoming ‘very distracting’ issue (F1 Academy)
‘Lining up in fourth, she was dogged in her pursuit, making her way up to second on the opening lap. Trying to pile the pressure on race leader Nina Gademan, she benefitted from the Alpine driver’s retirement to inherit the lead with two laps to go and fended off teammate Chloe Chambers for the victory.’
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