After a four-season break from the Shanghai International Circuit the teams are back and ready to race at this tight, twisty track with long, flat-out straights.
The Chinese Grand Prix joined Formula One in 2004, one year before Oracle Red Bull Racing entered the scene, and one of the Team’s greatest moments happened in Shanghai. In 2009 Sebastian Vettel took the Team’s first pole on the Saturday and then the first win for the Team on the Sunday. Mark Webber brought his RB5 home in P2. So, in one weekend the Bulls went from never claiming a pole or a win to collecting both and a one-two finish to top it off. Red Bull Racing had arrived!
The next win came nine years later in 2018 when Daniel Ricciardo stood on top of the podium after coming from P6 at the start of the race. He also took the fastest lap.
Including those wins, the Team has a total of just seven podiums in China. Max claimed P3 in 2017 for the Team, but he and Checo will be looking to add to that tally this weekend.
The circuit itself is 5.4km long with 16 turns – nine right handers, 7 left – and has a flat-out section just under 1.4km long. The most distinctive feature is turns one and two, which is a sharp right-hander of 270-degrees before snapping back to a left hander. The drivers’ favourite sections seem to be the sweeping left and then right corners of turns seven and eight. The current lap record is still held by Michael Schumacher, who set the time in 2004 (the first year of the race), his time of 1:32.238 is still the one to beat.
This year, China will have the honour of hosting the first Sprint Weekend of the season, so the drivers hit the track at 11:30am (track time) on Friday before heading straight into the Sprint Qualifying in the afternoon.
