Formula 1 News: 2024 Chinese GP Post-Race Quotes

All ten Formula 1 teams plus tire supplier Pirelli, provided quotes after the 2024 Chinese GP held in Shanghai and won by Max Verstappen.

Oracle Red Bull Racing

Max Verstappen (1st): “I think today went really well and I was very happy with everything, we had great pace in the whole race although of course with the deployment of the safety car, the gap that I had made was shortened and we then had to gain that back. Today the car was very well balanced, every time that we needed to be quick we were and it felt much more consistent to drive in comparison to the Sprint, even for the restarts and overall I am really pleased with the performance that we had as a team. Every race is different in terms of emotions, this one was particularly enjoyable because the whole weekend went so well, especially considering that it was a Sprint weekend which is always much more hectic. A weekend like this is as much as you can ever hope for.  A win in Shanghai was definitely on my list, to be here and to win in front of such an amazing crowd is very special and I am pleased that the race is back on the calendar.”

Sergio Perez (3rd): “The safety car cost us a little today, it would have been close but unfortunately it came at the wrong time for us and put us on the back foot and we lost two places. Fighting with Charles damaged my tires a little too much and it made it hard. The level of degradation was a little too trying on this track to make better progress, so we struggled. I wanted more today, I did expect a little more from the race, the Sprint looked very promising but today we were not able to capitalize on that. We made some changes that potentially took away some of our performance. We will review those for Miami to make sure we keep this progression going to keep these better weekends. We are having a lot stronger weekends and it’s just a matter of now being able to lead from lap one and do our own race, hopefully that will come soon.”

Christian Horner, Sporting Director: “It was a phenomenal weekend for the Team, 117 wins and 15 years since our first victory here marks a very big moment for us and one I am very proud of on a personal level. We are very happy with the progress. Max has just been fantastic, all season long and again with Checo on the podium sums up a great all round performance. We were on an aggressive two stop and we were a little unlucky with the safety car which played into Lando and Charles favor, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. So they got a free stop and were able to jump Checo on track. He managed to pass Charles but unfortunately, he didn’t have enough to catch Lando. Maybe we took a bit too much out tires early on, but it was a great drive by both drivers and a great race by the whole Team. The pit crew were on their game today with the double stack and that is a measure of the tone set by the Team in general, everyone continues to fire on all cylinders both here and back at home in Milton Keynes. I would also like to thank Exxon Mobil for their continued support and congratulate them on 50 years of Mobil 1. We literally would not be able to get out of the gate without them!”

Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team

George Russell (6th): “Starting P8 and making up a few positions was what we were expecting from today’s race. The result is probably a fair one and we know we have work to do. We’ve had a similar battle with Alonso and Piastri in the last three races so P6 is about where our car is at present. It was interesting weekend, overall. With the Sprint format, we ended up having two very different set-ups on the car from Friday and Saturday morning into the rest of the weekend. There’s lots to pick through and hopefully things to build on. We need to keep on adding performance to the car in order to finish higher up the grid. We will keep working hard to do so.”

Lewis Hamilton (9th): “I went forwards and got into the points, but it was a tough race. Ultimately, I made a bad set-up change to the car yesterday and I paid the price for it. I plan to make sure I don’t do that in the future! The car does seem to work in a small window, and I did think it was the correct thing to do. Sadly, it made today very difficult. The team did a great job with the pit stops though and George did well to score some solid points. I’m sure the next race in Miami will be better. Whilst I didn’t have the best race, it’s still been awesome to see the incredible fans here. They are some of the best anywhere in the world. I am so grateful to see them again after several years away and it made for a brilliant atmosphere.”

Toto Wolff, Team Principal: “Considering where we started today and more importantly, where we had put the cars in terms of their set-up after the Sprint, P6 and P9 was the best prediction from our pre-race simulations. The car that we have under us is not currently fast enough. However, we must make sure that we are not trying to find a silver bullet each weekend when it comes to how we run the car; we need to focus on getting the basics right, and maximizing the package we have. Today, we didn’t have the car in the right window: we made too many extreme changes after the Sprint and that made the most important part of the weekend much more challenging. We know that today’s result is not strong enough overall, so we must dig deep to make improvements. The pack behind Red Bull is close, and small details can make a big difference in terms of finishing position. We have developments to bring in the coming races which we hope are a step forward and will improve the car.”

Andrew Shovlin: “It was always going to be a tough race for us. We’re not quick enough currently and we didn’t qualify well. Our finishing positions were exactly where we’d forecast them to be this morning. George couldn’t really have got more out of it; he got a good start which put him ahead of the Ferraris, but we’d taken a bit too much out of the rear tires in that first stint and had to box earlier than planned. That early stop would have been more painful to deal with, but the two Safety Car periods were helpful for us and neutralized the tire age offset. The race from there in was straightforward. We were not quick enough to attack Sainz but had the pace to stay ahead of Fernando. Lewis’s race wasn’t easy as he didn’t gain much off the line on the Soft tire. He then got stuck in a traffic jam on the inside line around Turn 2 and lost to cars on the wide line. We had made some changes to his car after the Sprint and clearly, they weren’t didn’t improve the car. It made Qualifying and the race difficult. He was struggling to turn the car and having to use the power to do so, which was hurting the rear tires. We decided to pit him under the Virtual Safety Car to offset to other cars, but most of our competitors did the same once the Safety Car was deployed. We benefitted from a couple of cars dropping out ahead but, considering the early part of the race, it was a relief to get some points. We will work hard to ensure we do a better job at the next race in Miami.”

Scuderia Ferrari

Charles Leclerc (4th): “We’re not completely satisfied with our result as a team today. We have two things to focus on leaving Shanghai, one is our qualifying trim and the other our pace on the Hards, which was our main challenge today. Our strategy and performance were strong until the Safety Car, but after that we were all on the same strategy and it was a bit more difficult for us to get back to speed on the Hard tires. What will be essential is the upcoming upgrades, as they will define the direction we will take for the next part of the season.”

Carlos Sainz (5th): “A tough race on a challenging track for us this weekend. The first few corners were far from ideal and with the traffic we decided to pit early to switch to the Hard tires. Some laps later, under the Safety Car, we stayed out on that tire and went to the end to finish fifth. In any case, overall we struggled more than expected and the result today is not what we wanted. We will review everything before going to Miami, where I’m confident we can return to the form we showed in the previous weekends.”

Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal: “I’m not sure if we could have expected more in terms of finishing higher up the order today given our grid positions. However, I was expecting more in terms of pace than we demonstrated in the race. We now need to understand why that was, especially on the Hards and improve in time for Miami both in qualifying and the race because it’s all very close currently with hundredths of a second making a big difference. We had put both drivers on a two-stop strategy and Charles did a good job of lengthening his stint on the Mediums, but when the Virtual Safety Car was called, we went for a one stop, with the hope of being able to fight for a podium finish. Unfortunately, Carlos had stopped just before the Safety Car and so he too had to switch to a single stop. This naturally meant he had to be a bit conservative in the final part of the race, but he still brought home the best result that was possible today.”

McLaren Formula 1 Team

Lando Norris (2nd):

Oscar Piastri (8th):

Andrea Stella, Team Principal:

Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team

Fernando Alonso (7th): “We didn’t quite have the pace today and it was a tricky race with a lot of things happening. Despite this, it was important to score some points and a bonus to get the fastest lap too. We made a good start and moved up to second, and for a moment I thought it would be nice to lead the race for a lap, but we couldn’t make that happen. A few Safety Cars changed the strategy a little bit and we didn’t have any more Hard tires available, so that’s why we made a switch to the Soft compound. Overall, it was a good race, but we have some work to do to improve our Sunday pace and match what we can do in Qualifying.”

Lance Stroll (15th): “We were on for a good result today. The Soft tires had performed well at the start of the race and I made a couple of crucial overtakes to climb into the points. We timed our stop well under the VSC and I think ninth place was on the cards. Then, when the Safety Car came in, there was a chain reaction with all the cars ahead suddenly slowing. I didn’t have enough time to react and avoid contact with Daniel [Ricciardo]. It’s frustrating because I ended up with the penalty, but the incident was caused by someone at the front of the pack braking suddenly. After the front wing change we were running last which meant our race was effectively over. It’s a shame to lose out on the points, but we’ll regroup ahead of another Sprint weekend in Miami.”

Mike Krack, Chief Operating Officer: “Seven hard-earned points today after an eventful Chinese Grand Prix weekend. Fernando’s three-stop race was compromised to some extent by the extended Safety Car periods, which negated the full benefit of the Soft tires. Fernando’s recovery in the final laps, making use of new Medium tires, provided plenty of entertainment and brought him back to P7. We also picked up a point for the fastest lap. It was good damage limitation. Lance’s strong race was undone by the incident under the Safety Car: we need to fully analyse what happened but it was a chain reaction caused by cars ahead. He was running well in the points, was on the best tire strategy, and was set to score good points. We will regroup ahead of another Sprint weekend in Miami.”

BWT Alpine F1 Team

Esteban Ocon (11th): “As expected, it was a hectic race today with plenty of action and close racing, which was really fun from behind the wheel. Overall, we managed the race and the tires well. The positive is that we were more competitive here and put ourselves in contention for points, but narrowly missed out in the end – albeit being the best result of the season. We made a small step in performance this weekend, with the new parts the team brought to the track working as expected. Thank you to the team for fast-tracking the upgrades, but we must keep improving in order to remain in the fight for points in the coming races, continuing in Miami in two weeks’ time.”

Pierre Gasly (13th): “We can be encouraged with the outcome today looking at the performance this season so far. It was quite interesting how the race unfolded and there are a few areas where we lost time today, but I am glad we managed to recover some places. We will take a lot of learnings with us. There is a lot for us to analyze and understand from this weekend, which we will focus on in the coming days preparing for the next race in Miami. I am already looking forward to being back in the US, where we will have the opportunity to run with the new package on my side for the first time. Until then, the team will continue to work hard, so we can make sure we can continue improving and get us closer back to where we want to be. The Chinese fans put on a great show today and it felt great to be back here after such a long time.”

Bruno Famin, Team Principal: “It was an incident-packed race with multiple Safety Car periods, meaning we needed to stay alert and be ready to react, which we did with a well-executed double stacked pit-stop. Esteban drove a great race to be within striking distance of scoring points, but just missed out in the end. Pierre also did well to recover and make up places after the delay in his first stop. Thankfully nobody was hurt, and we will investigate the reasons to avoid such incidents in future. What today shows is that we still have work to do, and as a team, we need to keep pushing for more performance, as we did not quite have enough today. Special thanks to the team at the factory, who put in a big effort to bring new parts to Shanghai, which performed as expected.”

Williams Racing

Alexander Albon (12th): “It was an okay race today. Although the lower winds helped us, we were battling a lot of tire degradation throughout the race. We ultimately didn’t have the pace to overtake [Esteban] Ocon at the end and he was defending well. We understand the problems with the car, but they’re not immediate fixes and we will need a few upgrades to improve our performance. Looking to Miami, I think our car will suit the track much better and I’m optimistic we can have a better result.”

Logan Sargeant (17th): “It’s been a difficult weekend as we’ve been struggling to get the car in the right window. We’ve had good moments and some bad moments through the weekend. Most importantly we need to figure out what we could’ve done better as a team. The first half of the race was solid. The start on the Softs was strong then we were in a really good place on the Medium tires. We probably could’ve done without the Safety Car because we would’ve gone Medium, Medium which would’ve suited us better. When we put the Hard tires on, I couldn’t get them to switch on and suffered with degradation. The penalty for the Safety Car infringement doesn’t really matter in the end. From my perspective, I thought I crossed the line first. When the cars are going at such different speeds, I don’t know how I could’ve known the true order.”

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: “We were more competitive today and having taken the opportunity to make some setup changes on Logan’s car, we were able to do some useful testing in good conditions. The experience gained yesterday in the Sprint race helped Alex and Logan to manage their stints today. Whilst we didn’t quite have the pace to fight for the final points positions, we were close on pace with the teams around us. It was good to come back to the Shanghai circuit and complete the first Sprint event of the year. It was a tricky weekend, but the team worked very hard throughout, and we made good progress as the event progressed.”

Visa Cash App RB Formula One

Daniel Ricciardo (DNF, Damage): “We started to make up a lot of ground in the stint before the Safety Car but during the restart, I got a pretty big hit and the car was damaged. We decided to retire because I wasn’t really driving an F1 car. It’s very frustrating. I watched his onboard and it looked like he wasn’t even looking at me, it seemed that his helmet was looking at the apex. We’ll never know what could have happened later in the race, but I think we were looking in a good place. Getting ruined by someone else makes me frustrated and this is where the disappointment comes, because today we had an opportunity and we missed it. I think there’s a lot of disappointment for everyone in the team. When I got back to the garage, I saw the mechanics looking at the damage and they feel as heartbroken as I do. I think we definitely had a better weekend from a pace point of view, and I I think the team could feel some momentum and some shift to the season. We go onto Miami and we’ll just try to keep working on that.”

Yuki Tsunoda (DNF, Damage): “It’s unfortunate and frustrating how it ended up today. I was happy with how I progressed in the race until my contact with Magnussen. After the Safety Car, the start was good and I gained five positions, so I feel I maximized what I could do but the pace itself hadn’t improved as much as we wanted. We’ve been sliding more than other cars and the team has been pushing hard and helping me sort it out but overall, this week we weren’t able to show our true strong performance, and that’s a shame. We’ll look into why back in Faenza, and I know as a team we’ll come back stronger in Miami. It’s a shame that also Daniel had to retire because he had good pace in this race, so as a team, it’s frustrating that neither car finished the race and we couldn’t score points.”

Laurent Mekies, Team Principal: “It is a disappointing Sunday for us with both cars taken out of the race in separate incidents which our drivers could do nothing about. It’s painful but we have no other choice than to accept it and move on. On a positive note, and even if the weekend had started on the slow side, everyone has been working very hard to recover enough pace to be in the fight for P10 again.  Daniel produced a very strong drive all weekend, especially today, battling with Lewis just before the Safety Car came out. It was a trickier weekend for Yuki. It is always going to be difficult to drive for the first time here during a sprint weekend, but he kept fighting hard and drove a good race today where he made up a lot of positions. We will be regrouping with Daniel, Yuki, and the whole team in Faenza and in Bicester to analyze the weekend together and come back stronger in Miami for another ultra-tight battle, and hopefully a less frustrating Sunday!”

Claudio Balestri (Chief Engineer – Vehicle Performance) “For the race, we decided to split the two cars on a different strategy, starting Daniel on the medium compound and Yuki on the soft compound. For Daniel, he lost some positions at the start while Yuki was able to gain some. At the end of Lap 1, Daniel was P15 and Yuki P16, and considering we were far from the points we decided to pit Yuki for an early pitstop, with the target being to undercut the others and fitting a set of new medium tires. Instead with Daniel, we decided to stay out and go for a longer first stint, pitting him on Lap 14. The degradation was a bit higher than expected on all the compounds and when Bottas stopped his car on track, it created a Virtual Safety Car, followed by a full Safety Car. Almost all the cars pitted for the hard compound to try and go to the end, including Yuki. Unfortunately, just before the restart, Stroll ran into the back of Daniel and heavily damaged his car, and immediately after the restart, Magnussen hit Yuki, damaging his rear right tire. In summary, both cars were out of the race. Today was not our day but we’ll switch our focus to the next race in Miami, where we want to fight for the points.”

Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber

Guanyu Zhou (14th): “This weekend has been an amazing experience: for years, I dreamt about racing at home and finally I was able to do it. To see the passion and the love from everyone on the stands was something I’ve never experienced before: the in-lap, in particular, was something I won’t ever forget, seeing so many people cheering and shouting your name. I made sure I waved at each grandstand, at every corner with fans. As much as I treated this as a regular race weekend, the emotion was undeniable and it really got me in the end, especially when I stopped in Parc Ferme: it was a special moment, topping off the honor of being the first ever Chinese driver to race in a Chinese Grand Prix. The race was tough, especially in the first stint where I didn’t have a lot of grip and I was sliding all over the place, but we did manage to recover well. Finishing the race isn’t what makes me happy – it’s to do so fighting my way through the field, giving everything and leaving nothing behind. Unfortunately, starting from the back we knew breaking into the points would be difficult, but we can focus on some positives, such as our pace; and, of course, the great improvement done by the team and the crew in the pit stops, which were mostly clean. At the end, we chose to go for a cheeky stint on softs: we knew we’d be able to keep the position we were in if we didn’t stop, so we gambled to switch to softs and see if we could improve even more. We did a lot of overtakes, the car felt good and it was nice to fight my way through. Given the pressure of this weekend, I am happy with the job I have done. The whole weekend was positive, yesterday afternoon and today a bit tougher but we gave it all.”

Valtteri Bottas (DNF, Power unit): “Today marks a rather disappointing ending to a very promising weekend: starting from P10 put me in a good position to fight for points, and the race was going well overall until I suddenly lost drive and my engine turned off – something we’ll have to thoroughly investigate in the upcoming days. It’s quite unfortunate, while there was still a long way to go, I was fighting with Nico [Hülkenberg] who made it into the points. It’s tough to accept, but this is racing, and many more opportunities will arise: our pace is improving and as a team, we’re making small steps on many fronts all the time. We’ve been around P10 the entire weekend and were able to learn a lot about our car and our upgrades that will allow us to maximize our potential. As we keep making those steps, I’m looking forward to racing in Miami again, a track I have enjoyed a lot in the last years.”

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: “This hasn’t been the race we expected, it hasn’t been the race we wanted. Before going into the analysis of the race, it’s worth acknowledging the important page that Zhou, together with the team, has written for the history of motorsport and Formula One in China. Testament to this is the support of all the spectators throughout the whole weekend, from Thursday onwards: it was something impressive, that went beyond our expectations. We saw how much the popularity of Formula One is increasing in China thanks to Zhou, and we’re proud that our team could be part of this with him. We expected a tough race for him, starting 16th, but he had good pace and fought well in the many battles he had. We adopted an aggressive strategy in the closing stages, switching to soft tires to give him more performance: unfortunately, there were no points for him today, but it was important to show he could fight and be competitive against the cars around him. It was a disappointing end of the race for Valtteri, who was fighting with Nico [Hülkenberg] for a place in the top ten. He had a solid opening stint on medium tires, and the choice to move to hards was the right one: unfortunately, his race was cut short by a drivetrain issue, something we will investigate. It was a big disappointment as he had the pace to finish in the points, which would have been a deserved result for him and the team. Finally, a positive side to today’s race was the consistency in our pit stops, in which we were able to achieve the target we had set for ourselves for this weekend. It’s an improvement that will give confidence to our pit crew too. Now, we set our sights to Miami with the awareness we can go there for a strong weekend.”

James Key, Technical Director: “This weekend has been an amazing experience: for years, I dreamt about racing at home and finally I was able to do it. To see the passion and the love from everyone on the stands was something I’ve never experienced before: the in-lap, in particular, was something I won’t ever forget, seeing so many people cheering and shouting your name. I made sure I waved at each grandstand, at every corner with fans. As much as I treated this as a regular race weekend, the emotion was undeniable and it really got me in the end, especially when I stopped in Parc Ferme: it was a special moment, topping off the honor of being the first ever Chinese driver to race in a Chinese Grand Prix. The race was tough, especially in the first stint where I didn’t have a lot of grip and I was sliding all over the place, but we did manage to recover well. Finishing the race isn’t what makes me happy – it’s to do so fighting my way through the field, giving everything and leaving nothing behind. Unfortunately, starting from the back we knew breaking into the points would be difficult, but we can focus on some positives, such as our pace; and, of course, the great improvement done by the team and the crew in the pit stops, which were mostly clean. At the end, we chose to go for a cheeky stint on softs: we knew we’d be able to keep the position we were in if we didn’t stop, so we gambled to switch to softs and see if we could improve even more. We did a lot of overtakes, the car felt good and it was nice to fight my way through. Given the pressure of this weekend, I am happy with the job I have done. The whole weekend was positive, yesterday afternoon and today a bit tougher but we gave it all.”

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team

Nico Hulkenberg (10th): “It was a faultless and clean race from my side today. I think it was a well-managed and well-controlled race from the team. It’s a positive and I’m very happy about that – we got that one point that was up for grabs today. One of the top-five team’s cars had a problem and that’s the spot we got because of it, otherwise it’s not really possible to race with them. It also shows we need to have a perfect qualifying on Saturday and a perfect race on Sunday to be able to be where we are today. We couldn’t have done much more. One point, in our world, is a lot!”

Kevin Magnussen (16th): “It just really wasn’t our day today to be honest. We started 17th after a bad qualifying yesterday – we took the consequence of that today. Sometimes you can make it back, but today we couldn’t. We had attempted a one-stop strategy, we had to bail out because the degradation was too high on the hard. As soon as I came out on the new hard rubber, I had the puncture because of the incident with Yuki – so had to pit again for the medium. I effectively had to do a one-stop anyway, even though we didn’t want to. Things were working well with the car though, we seem to have decent pace in it, that was also the case in Sprint qualifying and the Sprint race earlier in the weekend.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: “It was amazing to get a point again today with Nico. In terms of Nico’s race, from everyone – driving, operations, pit-stop, it was perfection. We knew exactly what we had to do in terms of getting ourselves into a good position to get that point – initially against Bottas. Both communication and execution were good. Honestly, I think we managed to execute a perfect race with Nico – it was brilliant. With Kevin, unfortunately we didn’t have luck from qualifying, so we started from the back and couldn’t really do the race we wanted to do. Now we look forward to Miami. I think we can take a lot of confidence from this race.”

Pirelli Tires

Mario Isola, Pirelli Motorsports Boss: “I take my hat off to yet another show of strength from Max Verstappen, who won twice on this first Sprint weekend of the season. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting race because behind the three time world champion, there was a very close race with surprises, overtaking and excitement. In fact, there was also great excitement among the Chinese fans who had their eyes glued on local hero Guanyu Zhou all weekend long, and he showed his emotion acknowledging their support after the race.

“From a purely technical point of view, today’s race confirmed that all three compounds were suitable for use. Obviously, the long Safety Car periods affected the way the race played out, allowing those considering a one-stop to make it work. However, given the level of degradation evident, it would have really been borderline to make the one stop work without the Safety Car, as there would have been too high a price to pay in terms of performance compared to those who would have been on quicker, and possibly newer, tires in the final part of the race. In fact, this was demonstrated by Alonso, who came in for new Mediums on lap 43 when in seventh place, and was then able to make up all five places lost at the pit stop over the course of his final stint. Finally, it’s worth noting that none of the three compounds suffered from graining, further proof that they worked well on this unusual track in very particular conditions.”

Max Verstappen’s dominance was again the story in Shanghai. After winning yesterday morning’s Sprint, the three time world champion added this afternoon’s race win to his tally. It is his fourth victory from five races so far this season, plus the Sprint here in China. It takes his total to 58 Grands Prix victories from 190 starts, while for Red Bull it is win number 117.

Predictably, the vast majority of drivers opted to start on the Medium, with four – Hamilton, Stroll, Sargeant and Tsunoda – going for the Soft and Magnussen choosing the Hard.

The way the race panned out and the various strategy choices were influenced by three Safety Car periods, one virtual and two real, for a total of around 17 minutes, just before half-distance. This bunched up the pack and mixed things up in terms of pit stops and tire usage to the extent that six drivers – Hamilton, Stroll, Alonso, Sargeant, Tsunoda and Zhou – ended up using all three compounds. Further confirmation of this was the fact that the strategies of the drivers who made up the top ten were very different to one another in terms of the order in which the compounds were used, as well as in the number of pit stops: Norris, Sainz and Leclerc stopped only once, while Verstappen, Perez, Russell, Hamilton, Piastri and Hulkenberg stopped twice and Alonso three times.

The longest stint of all was driven by Sainz (39 laps on the Hard) with Magnussen going furthest (29 laps) on the Medium and Alonso doing 20 on the Soft.