A fuel pump issue prevented Sergio Perez from partaking in Chinese Grand Prix sprint qualifying, with the Cadillac driver lamenting a problem the nascent Formula 1 team has had for “far too long”.
Perez’ free practice running was hampered by a fuel system problem in Melbourne, with similar trouble taking team-mate Valtteri Bottas out of the Australian Grand Prix.
Perez covered just 13 laps in the only practice session at Shanghai, spending the latter part of the action in the garage. It emerged his MAC-26 was suffering from the aforementioned problem, which ruled him out of sprint qualifying.
“Yeah, it was a fuel pump issue,” the Mexican commented. “Unfortunately, we've been struggling in that area already for a long time, far too long, so it is very frustrating. We haven't been able to solve it, and it's been already a lot of times that we've been with that issue.”
Asked whether the team would be able to fix it for Saturday’s sprint, Perez replied: “I don't know. I think obviously the team is working really hard back at home as well, and we'll see if they're able to fix it or not. We had the same issue this morning, so the running has been very limited so far. Hopefully we are able to do it.
“We've been having this sort of issue since the testing started, so we haven't come up with a solution, and I really hope that soon we can have it.”
Meanwhile, Bottas qualified 21st and last, with a substantial 1.8s gap to the lead Aston Martin, while he was more than three seconds away from the Q2 cut-off time.
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
However, the Finn was hampered by a ‘significant deployment issue’, leading him to describe sprint qualifying as “a bit of a waste of a session”.
“It's quite difficult to say where we would have ended up [without the problem],” he added.
Cadillac chief technical officer Nick Chester admitted to “a difficult day”, with his cars finding themselves on the back row of the grid for the sprint.
“At this early stage in our journey we are still finding issues and fixing them in real time,” Chester added.
“We were unable to set representative times. All the same, every lap we do gives us more valuable information that lets us move forward.”
Ferrari’s ground-breaking Formula 1 rear wing, which rotates 180 degrees, returned at the Chinese Grand Prix – but the experiment was short-lived.
The wing, which was first seen in action during pre-season testing, was trialled by both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in the only free practice session of the Shanghai weekend. This featured a spin from Hamilton, when the wing closed coming into the Turn 6 braking zone – “Brakes locked up,” he summarised on the radio.
The Scuderia eventually returned to its more conventional, Melbourne-spec rear wing in sprint qualifying.
“I don't really know why we went back on it,” Hamilton commented. “I think we rushed it to get it here and it was not supposed to be on the cards until I think it was race four or five or something like that. So they did a great job to rush it here.
“We only had two of them and it was maybe a little bit premature. So we took it off. The car was still great and we'll work to try and bring it back when it's ready.”
Motorsport understands Ferrari was satisfied with the wing’s performance relative to its conventional version and encouraged by its reliability, but decided it didn’t have enough guarantees to take the risk of running it during a whole race.
The fact that the wing still wouldn’t bring enough performance to be a game changer made the decision easier.
The Scuderia will now run further analysis back in Maranello ahead of the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix, in two weeks’ time.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Hamilton and Leclerc qualified in fourth and sixth, with the seven-time world champion 0.641s slower than polesetter George Russell and the Monegasque a further 0.367s adrift. That gap was down to Leclerc being hampered by an unspecified issue on the back straight, which the team will investigate further – team boss Fred Vasseur explained “he didn't have the same deployment as the lap before”.
“My team did a really great job,” Hamilton commented. “My engineers did a fantastic job to turn the car around, because in P1 it was a tricky session with that spin and the car generally felt great. It’s just we're losing, I think it is on the straights, it's a lot of time to be losing.
“So we have a lot of work to do. We really have to push so hard back in Maranello to improve on power. It was something that I think we were conscious of last year that we thought that Mercedes started earlier than us or the rest, which they did last time as well. So they've done a fantastic job and we've got to step up. We've got to push to be able to close that gap.
“I think car-wise, the car feels great, I think we can compete with them through corners. But when you're down on power, it's just the way it is.”
Leclerc, who insisted the innovative rear wing “doesn't really change the picture from where we are”, expects to be stronger in the race but corroborated Hamilton’s analysis regarding Mercedes’ dominance.
“In qualifying, for some reason, the Mercedes power unit finds a lot of lap time. We don't quite find that amount of lap time just yet in qualifying, but in the race we are closer. So I'm still hopeful we can come back tomorrow,” he concluded.
Like he did in Melbourne, Russell was fastest in all three qualifying segments at Shanghai; Mercedes outpaced rivals McLaren and Ferrari, with Max Verstappen down in eighth for Red Bull.
Russell set the tone by topping Q1 in 1m33.030s, leading the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. The second Mercedes was four tenths off, with the McLarens nearly eight tenths adrift.
Verstappen was only 11th then, complaining about his RB22’s “horrendous” driveability, followed by Oliver Bearman and Gabriel Bortoleto, who both made it through despite excursions in the gravel trap at the exit of the last corner.
A lock-up at Turn 11 and lap time improvements at Alpine meant Alex Albon was eliminated alongside team-mate Carlos Sainz, the Aston Martins and Valtteri Bottas’ Cadillac, nearly two seconds slower than Fernando Alonso. Sergio Perez was unable to partake in the session due to a fuel system issue, after a similar gremlin took Bottas out of the Australian GP.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
The Silver Arrows were last to take to the track in Q2 but rose to the top straight away, with Russell in 1m32.241s and Antonelli in 1m32.570s – but the Italian seemingly blocked Lando Norris in Turn 1. Other than Leclerc in 1m32.602s, nobody was fewer than nine tenths away from the lead Mercedes.
As Antonelli improved to a 1m32.291s, Verstappen went wide in the final corner; the Red Bull very narrowly emerged out of Q2, with the Dutchman 0.071s quicker than 11th-placed Nico Hulkenberg while his team-mate Isack Hadjar was just 0.015s ahead of the Audi.
Russell’s first Q3 benchmark was a 1m31.520s, outpacing Antonelli, Hamilton, Leclerc and Verstappen by 0.36s, 0.64s, 1.21s and 1.73s respectively. The other five cars, including the McLarens and Hadjar, remained in the garage until the last possible moment.
Antonelli improved by 0.07s on his second attempt; so did Leclerc by 0.20s, but it wasn’t enough to match their respective British team-mates. Norris climbed to third, narrowly beating Hamilton and Oscar Piastri. Verstappen and Hadjar qualified down in eighth and 10th, with Gasly a convincing seventh.
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