What we learned from Friday at the Chinese Grand Prix

Chinese GP

What we learned from Friday at the Chinese Grand Prix

It's tight at the top!

Matthew Scott

Friday 12 April 2019 09:30

Friday practice for the Chinese Grand Prix ended with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull all occupying a spot in the top three, although the opening session in Shanghai perhaps suggested that the Scuderia do hold an advantage over their rivals as expected.

Valtteri Bottas ended the day quickest, while Ferrari's mechanics were put to work on Charles Leclerc's car to temper the Scuderia's confidence a touch.

Ferrari were forced to run "cooling system checks" on Leclerc's car after cutting short his long-run practice in FP2, with an apparent leak causing trouble.

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#Charles16 in the garage for cooling system checks as a precaution to avoid any damages. #FP2 #ChineseGP
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) April 12, 2019

The Monegasque also saw his qualifying simulation affected by traffic and tyre wear, setting him back slightly as he looks to respond to his lost victory in Bahrain.

Scuderia sandbagging?

Sebastian Vettel was within two hundredths of Bottas in FP2, but his FP1 efforts were noteworthy as he ran quickest despite not fitting the soft tyre.

With a compound estimated to be 0.6 seconds slower than the soft tyre in use in Shanghai, Vettel was quickest by two tenths than his closest competitor Lewis Hamilton.

"We think Ferrari have turned it up already, if not that's a bit depressing," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told Sky Sports.

There was reason for Horner to be cheerful in FP2, with Max Verstappen in third, within two tenths of the leading time, despite a zig-zagging exit from the final corner, which suggested that more pace remains in the car.

Hamilton had his qualifying sim impacted by debris on-track, while Leclerc also has time in his pocket, hinting at a rip-roaring Saturday qualifying on the horizon.

Rapid Renault

The French marque look to have stolen an early march in the midfield, with their works drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg, and customer McLaren filling the top 10 among the front-runners.

Hulkenberg was the quickest of the Renault-powered cars – half a second quicker than the quickest midfield car not fitted with the French power unit, Kimi Raikkonen's Alfa Romeo.

Both Hulkenberg and Sainz were quicker than Leclerc and Pierre Gasly and all four Renault-powered drivers will hope that a new MGU-K brought to China will help boost reliability – an issue across the opening two rounds.

Fragile Haas an issue?

Perhaps something for the American squad to work on, with both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean seeing bits of carbon fibre depart the chassis during FP2.

Magnussen appeared to lose parts of his floor after running over the final kerb, while Grosjean's front wing failed while going over the bumps into Turn 1 – something the Frenchman oddly had to deal with for two laps until he was called in.