Hamilton takes a dominant, emotional first victory with Ferrari at Shanghai

Having secured his first pole position with Ferrari in yesterday's sprint qualifying, seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton took a dominant victory with the Scuderia in the Shanghai F1 Sprint at the Chinese Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo reports on the 100km dash.

Starting from pole, Lewis Hamilton got a good start, covering off reigning champion Max Verstappen. However, championship leader Norris got out of shape into Turn 2, locking up his tyres, and as a result, he dropped to P9.

On Lap 2, Hamilton was desperate to break the one-second mark from Verstappen in order to deprive the Dutchman of any chances of using his DRS.

In the meantime, Russell picked off Leclerc into the hairpin, moving up to fourth while Racing Bulls driver Yuki Tsunoda made up two positions to move himself ahead of Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Despite Hamilton's efforts to break the DRS, Verstappen closed in on the seven-time F1 champion on Lap 4 within a second, and therefore he was entitled to use his moveable rear wing.

Two laps later, Hamilton pulled out of the DRS range while Oscar Piastri started to close in on Verstappen. In the meantime, his team-mate Lando Norris was unable to move up the order, and stayed ninth despite McLaren's eye-catching race simulation from the opening practice.

On Lap 9, Hamilton's front tyres showed graining, which allowed Verstappen to close in on his old rival.

In the meantime, Isack Hadjar, Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly and Gabriel Bortoleto were having a good time down the order, squabbling for the lower places. The former Ferrari driver picked off the Racing Bulls driver to move up tp P13, while Liam Lawson also joined the back of that fight.

On lap 14, Hamilton started to stretch his legs, building up a gap of 1.8 seconds from Verstappen, who had Piastri as a close company. The Dutchman reported that his "front tyres are dead".

While Verstappen was able to fend off Piastri's attacks, the Australian driver overtook the four-time F1 champion down the back straight. The Melbourne-born driver had a gap of 2.6 seconds to make up behind the leader.

However, Hamilton, unexpectedly, managed to up his eye-catching pace even more while Piastri also started to struggle with tyre degradation. The Briton's lead was up to 3.7s on Lap 17 while third-place Verstappen completely lost the connection to the leading duo.

Leclerc also started to display great pace in the dying stages of the 19-lap sprint, closing up on Russell to get himself within DRS range.

In the meantime, Norris picked off Stroll to move himself up to P8.

Although Leclerc was eager to overtake Russell and had a very strong pace in the end, he was unable to pick off the Mercedes driver.

In the meantime, his team-mate Hamilton built up a sizeable gap of 6.8 seconds to take an emotional maiden victory with Ferrari after leading all the way from pole to the chequered flag.

Piastri came home second ahead of Verstappen, while Russell finished fourth, from Leclerc in P5, Tsunoda in P6, Antonelli in P7, with Norris securing the last point in the Shanghai F1 Sprint.