After a chaotic opening race at Australia, the Formula One 2025 is officially underway. The action continues this weekend as well with the grid moving from Melbourne to Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix 2025.
Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix 2025 this weekend, here’s our race preview and predictions.
Williams on the rise
After years of struggling towards the bottom of the field, Williams Racing finally seems to have taken the correct steps as the iconic British team has started a new season, with a fresh driver pairing and new staff on a strong note.
Williams, who had a strong pre-season testing with Sainz holding the fastest time in pre-season testing, were one of the strongest performers last weekend in Australia with Alex Albon finishing a strong fifth to see the Grove based team pick up crucial points early on in the season. Albon qualified a brilliant sixth while Carlos Sainz also made his Williams debut by making sure there were two cars in Q3. While Sainz had a crash which ended his race right at the start of the race, Albon showcased strong race pace in a Williams which looks like it might dominate the mid-field.
Dark Horses: Williams Racing
Ferrari not to be taken lightly
Ferrari came into the new season as one of the title contenders with them bringing on board seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. The Scuderia though, had a weekend they would want to forget.
Although they walked away with five points, the Italian team knows that they have the resources and drivers to be fighting for the win. While they don’t seem to be on the same pace as McLaren right now, Charles Leclerc and Hamilton both are two drivers who have enough in them to bring more out of a car which isn’t the best on the grid.
The machinery is certainly one which should be fighting for podiums and counting out Ferrari from scoring a big haul of points at China would be daft.
Pole prediction: Lando Norris / Lewis Hamilton
Race winners prediction: McLaren / Ferrari
Haas in trouble
American Formula One team Haas seems to have had a rough start to the Formula One 2025 season. Rookie Ollie Bearman, who is part of Haas’ new lineup, had a tough start individually, having a couple of big crashes and also had an incident in pre-season. Haas had the second slowest time in pre-season testing with only Sauber behind them.
After a string of seasons at the bottom of the grid, the American team is looking to start afresh, like many of the lower midfield teams, with new driver lineups but the American team had a rough start to the new season. While Bearman’s crash didn’t let him set a time in qualifying, his teammate, Esteban Ocon was the slowest driver on the grid in qualifying.
Amongst the 14 drivers who finished the race, the two Haas cars were at the very end of the list with Ocon and Bearman finishing #13 and #14. The Haas team doesn’t look like it has the race pace to compete with the likes of Sauber, Racing Bulls and Alpine, who should be their competitors this season.
Expect another rough weekend for Haas in China.
Chinese GP 2025: Race Details
Circuit: Shanghai International Circuit
Venue: Jiading, Shanghai, China
Practice Session 1 time: 09:00, March 21, 2025
Sprint Qualifying time: 13:00, March 21, 2025
Sprint Race time: 08:30, March 22, 2025
Qualifying time: 12:30, March 22, 2025
Main race time: 12:30, March 23, 2025
Where to watch: F1 TV Pro / FanCode
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