Scuderia Ferrari marked the return of the Chinese Grand Prix to the calendar with a fourth and a fifth place courtesy of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. On the plus side, a total of 31 points in the bag, including those from the Sprint Race, the second highest total behind Red Bull. It was always going to be about trying to make up places after a difficult qualifying, but for the first time this season, neither driver made it to the podium. From sixth and seventh on the grid, the strategy was aimed at moving Charles and Carlos up the order without getting stuck in a DRS train. But neither of them got a good start, both of them overtaken by George Russell and that further complicated matters. Leclerc managed to get ahead of the Mercedes after nine laps and then ran at a strong pace on the Medium tyres, running a longer stint than those around him. Carlos had a harder first stint and came in on lap 17 to switch to Hards, rejoining tenth. One of the key moments was the arrival of the Virtual Safety Car on lap 22, when Valtteri Bottas stopped out on track, followed by a real Safety Car period. Charles then made his only planned stop to fit Hard tyres, taking half the time compared to usual, which thus promoted him to third behind Max Verstappen and Lando Norris and ahead of Sergio Perez. Carlos also benefited from the pit stops, moving up to fifth. At the restart, neither Ferrari driver was able to match the pace of the quickest cars on Hard tyres and so the Monegasque had to give best to Perez. Sainz had to lengthen his stint on the Hards, dropping down one place to sixth as Alonso passed him. However, Fernando was on Soft tyres and so Carlos retook the place when the Aston Martin had to make a further stop, thus finishing fifth, behind his team-mate. The world championship resumes in a fortnight’s time with the sixth round in Miami, the last race before the start of the European leg of the season.
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