ANALYSIS: Unexpected tyre behaviour in Shanghai race

Following severe tyre woes in the 19-lap Shanghai F1 Sprint, teams and drivers were caught by surprise by the tyre behaviour at last Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers his strategy analysis.

Although Lewis Hamilton dominated proceedings in Saturday's sprint race in China, the 56-lap grand prix ended with a one-two finish for McLaren, with Oscar Piastri ahead of Lando Norris, the Australian taking the third win of his career.

For the Woking-based outift, it was win number 191, it’s third in a row and the fourth at this event, the first in 14 years, since Lewis Hamilton won in 2011. Piastri and Norris secured McLaren’s 50th one-two finish, the second for this driver pairing after they finished in the same order in Budapest last year.

Saturday's Shanghai F1 Sprint had indicated that drivers would suffer from heavy graining on the front axle, and therefore most of the field built its pre-race calculation around a possible two-stop strategies, with the medium-hard-hard compound combination having been expected to turn out to be the quickest one.

On the starting grid, 17 drivers opted for the Medium for the first stint with only Lance Stroll and Oliver Bearman going for the Hard, while Liam Lawson also opted for the C2, but he started from the pit lane because of a penalty.

Despite the indications going into the race were for a two-stop strategy being clearly the most plausible, the way the race went and the tyre behaviour, drivers were able to handle the mediums on the first stint better than in the sprint race.

Reflecting on the strategies, Pirelli's motorsport director Mario Isola reckoned that the behaviour of the hard compound had been the biggest question mark ahead of the 56-lap Shanghai race.

“One of the key points of this Grand Prix was finding out how the Hard performed at this track. Clearly, data gathered over the first two days here, especially from the Sprint, gave the teams indications of how to change the car set-up in order to protect the front axle as much as possible, as it was the one most susceptible to graining.

"Track evolution meant it decreased on the Mediums compared to what was seen in the short race, even if for some teams, the wear was still significant. For its part, the Hard displayed only limited graining and more significantly, it performed very consistently including over very long stints, even allowing drivers to attack in the closing stages, as was the case with Verstappen for example."

Those who started on the Medium pitted to take on the C2 in a window between laps 10 and 20, Pierre Gasly the first to stop and Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg the last.

Meanwhile, the three drivers who started on the Hard ran a variety of stint lengths: Lawson came in on Lap 18, Bearman on 26 and Stroll stayed out until 36. Apart from these three, Gabriel Bortoleto had to pit on the opening lap to go straight onto the Hard, before coming in for another set of C2s after 25 laps.

In the second part of the race, it became clear that the Hard tyre was working very well, with only slight degradation. Three drivers (Hamilton and the two Racing Bulls) nevertheless went for a second stop, leaving the rest of the field to go all the way to the chequered flag. Of those who started on the Hard, Stroll and Bearman did their second stint on the Medium.

Speaking of the behaviour of the hard compound, Isola said: "When evaluating C2 behaviour, one should bear in mind that it is the compound that has undergone the biggest changes of any in the 2025 range and therefore was something of an unknown quantity for all the teams."

Assessing cars' performance on the newly-laid asphalt, Isola highlighted the fact that teams achieved a significant improvement in lap time both in qualifying and race trim.

"All things considered, it was quite an interesting weekend on a track, or specifically on a track surface, that produced very significant performance gains. For example, even today, the fastest race lap was 2”741 quicker than last year’s set on a very similar lap to last year, with Hamilton on lap 41 today and Alonso on lap 45 last year.

"With the first double-header now done and dusted, Formula 1 takes a short break before tackling a triple-header on tracks that are very different to each other, even if they all hold the promise of exciting racing, starting with the round in Suzuka over the first weekend in April," concluded Isola.