100th pole secured by Dutchman as Sergio Pérez qualifies second for all-Oracle Red Bull Racing front row in Shanghai.
April 20, 2024
Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen doubled up with a sensational win in the season’s first sprint race and a pole position performance in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit.
After being caught out by rain during Friday’s sprint qualifying session, the defending world champion powered through from fourth on the grid to win the 19-lap sprint race by an impressive 13.043s over Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton.
Team-mate Sergio Pérez also advanced impressively through the field from further down the grid in seventh to finish the race in third place.
Earlier in the day, Verstappen claimed his 100th pole position after dominating the qualifying sessions around the Shanghai International Circuit.
The Dutchman set a time of 1m 33.660s to top the time sheets for the fifth Grand Prix in a row, while Pérez made sure of an Oracle Red Bull Racing front row for Sunday’s feature race by beating Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso to second place on the grid with a time of 1m 33.982s.
Daniel Riccardo was the best of the Visa Cash App RB driver’s in both qualifying and the sprint races. The Australian drove to 12th in the qualifying sessions and went one better in the sprint to finish 11th.
Team-mate Yuki Tsnuoda meanwhile finished 16th in the sprint and endured a difficult qualifying and will lineup in 19th for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
QUOTES
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DANIEL RICCIARDO – Sprint Race – 11th/ Qualifying – 12th
“So far, it’s been a more positive weekend for us and my best one of the year. We changed the chassis this weekend and I feel the car bette,r and have more confidence in it, so that’s encouraging. I’ve always enjoyed Shanghai and I also have a pretty good past here, so I think we need to continue proving our performance in the course of the next few races. We had fun this morning, some positives to take, and some learning for tomorrow’s race. Mid-race in the DRS train was a bit tricky, but then once I cleared Valtteri Bottas, I was able to catch Kevin Magnussen quite quickly. We had a good battle in the last few laps, unfortunately, not for points, but we knew it would have been hard to get points in the sprint.
“Personally, I had a better feeling today and the sprint was definitely a more attacking race compared to the previous ones. Given track conditions changed quite a lot from yesterday, there were different circumstances; the rain made the track more slippery and the wind changed quite a lot, hence there were quite a few challenges before quali. I was happy with my lap in quali and feel there wasn’t much more in it. There were a couple of our direct rivals in Q3 and they found a bit more pace, but I do feel we have a bit more pace than some cars around us, even if at the same time some others are challenging us from behind. I’m excited to go racing again tomorrow; the sprint this morning has been encouraging, so I hope we can show a bit more in the long run. It’s probably a one-stop race, but it’s quite a unique front-limited circuit, so potentially even two. I think P12 is a decent place to start and offers the opportunity to try catching the ones in front and get some points.”
YUKI TSUNODA – Sprint Race – 16th/ Qualifying – 19th
“It’s been tough. This morning during the sprint, I tried to find my way, work the car and learn a bit more, but I was still struggling. We looked into the data and felt like we made a step forward for qualifying. It’s mixed feelings. In sprint qualifying, I felt I wasn’t able to put it together from my side, but in today’s qualifying, I was pretty happy with my lap. I’ve been struggling with rear grip all weekend and looking at the steering trace compared to other cars, I’m fighting my car a lot. I’ve been working hard together with the engineers to improve it and find a solution and they helped me a lot. Coming into qualifying, we felt good and confident we found an answer for our package. The lap itself I’m fairly happy with, but the time doesn’t reflect the feeling, so it feels like we’re just stuck. Ending up P19 again is frustrating and a shame, but we’ll analyse, try to understand and find the solution. Looking ahead to tomorrow, we have to change something to find more pace and hopefully we can be close to the points.”
ALAN PERMANE – Racing Director
“Starting with the sprint, both cars moved up three places which was good, although our starting positions were low due to our poor qualifying yesterday. Moving on to qualifying for the main race, Daniel did a good job and was close to making it through to the final session. With Yuki, we’re still struggling and uncertain what’s going on with his car. We’ll have a really good look through tonight. We’ve been through the data all weekend and we haven’t found anything wrong or any issues with his car yet, so we’ll continue looking and try to do the best job we can for him. I’m sure both our drivers will move up tomorrow, and we’ll be pushing to get into the points.”
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