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Hamilton hits back at critics after maiden Ferrari F1 sprint win
Peter McGinley • March 22nd, 2025 5:09 pm
Lewis Hamilton has converted a surprise pole in Friday F1 sprint qualifying to a comfortable victory in Shanghai.
The first of this season’s shorter format races ahead of qualifying for Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, saw Hamilton finish almost seven seconds ahead of Aussie Oscar Piastri and reigning World Champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull.
The seven-time World Champion was pleased with the result after a tough start to his time at Ferrari last weekend in Melbourne at the Australian Grand Prix, where he finished just inside the points in tenth.
“I really do feel a lot of people underestimated how steep the climb is to get into a new team to become acclimatized within a team, understanding communication, all sorts of things…” said Hamilton.
“The amount of critiics and people I’ve heard yapping along the way, just clearly not understanding, maybe because they never had the experience or were just unaware.
“It felt great to come here and feel comfortable in the car, cause in Melbourne, I really didn’t feel comfortable in the car.
“From lap one here this weekend, really feeling on it, we’ve done a great job with the engineers, the mechanics have done a great job to really fine tune the car, and it felt great today.”
Piastri was pleased with his sprint performance and is taking great confidence into the rest of the weekend after his lap 15 overtake of Max Verstappen to claim second.
“I think it was a very productive sprint finishing second,” said Piastri.
“I really learnt a lot in that one, and as much as the result is nice, the way I got the result is an encouraging thing.
“We didn’t quite have enough pace for Lewis out front, but we’ve got some good ideas for this afternoon and tomorrow and see if we can go one spot better.
“We’ve got good competition this weekend with the Ferraris looking pretty rapid, so we’ve got to be on our best form.”
George Russell was fourth for Mercedes ahead of Charles Leclerc in the other Ferrari in fifth.
Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsuonda was sixth ahead of rookie Kimi Antonelli in seventh in his F1 sprint debut.
Eighth was Lando Norris, after originally losing two places at the start of the race getting out of shape into turn two and running wide. The McLaren driver struggled in with his left front tyre during the race, owing to the cambered nature of the Shanghai International Circuit.
Aston Martin rounded out the top ten, with Lance Stroll ahead of Fernando Alonso.
Kiwi Liam Lawson was 14th but was involved in a lap five incident where passed Aussie Jack Doohan, not before pushing him off the track. Doohan meanwhile finished last in 20th after last lap contact with Kick Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto at the turn 13 hairpin.
Qualifying for the 2025 Chinese Grand prix gets underway at 6pm AEDT
