How The Chinese Grand Prix Will Be An Interesting Contest For Verstappen

The venue was Shanghai’s International circuit. The event was the much-awaited Chinese Grand Prix. And the date was April 12, but 2015, which doing simple schoolboy math suggests, was a decade back in the day. The lovely and talented young racing drivers that have today set a perfect foundation to what could be long F1 careers weren’t even on the grid at that time.

That’s irrespective of whether one talks about Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri of McLaren or Alex Albon and Logan Sergeant of Williams or even the incredible Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, the man entrusted with the enormous task of bringing glory to Maranello.

What kind of record does Max Verstappen hold at China?

Back in those days, the sport constantly shuttled between the prowess of Sebastian Vettel in a Ferrari and the herculean force that was Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren. With Nico Rosberg in great form, the other Mercedes lent a golden touch to the force that was Silver Arrows.

But the date was also memorable in that a certain Max Verstappen, then approaching 17 years of age, was all set to appear in his maiden Chinese Grand Prix.

Alas, it wouldn’t prove to be such a memorable one for the man from The Netherlands.

Back then with Scuderia Toro Rosso, the young racer first notched up a decent, if not entirely disastrous, thirteenth in qualifying. Later, he would recede to a seventeenth, despite finishing only 90 percent of the race; a drivetrain issue hampered his racing effort. On the other hand, his then teammate, Carlos Sainz Jr. would notch up a fighting thirteenth with the team failing to collect any points whatsoever.

Surely, Max Verstappen has won at many divergent circuits since then and contested at challenging conditions from that point on. But his battle with the Chinese Grand Prix seems to be a bit of an unfinished journey. Or better yet, a semi-complete portrait!

In the other installations of the Chinese Grand Prix, Max Verstappen has contested avidly albeit scoring moderate results. A year after his very first drive at Shanghai, Verstappen, who until the halfway mark of the year was still with Toro Rosso scored his first points at the venue courtesy a decent P8.

But once he set foot in the Milton Keynes-based Red Bull team, he would up his game and immediately upon his full time arrival, circa 2017, improve his Chinese showing.

A P3 in the 2017 Chinese Grand Prix was the result of fast paced driving. Though the great Lewis Hamilton emerged the winner of the contest back then, it was the 18-year-old racer born in Hasselt (Belgium), whose manic overtakes and driving literally on the edge made for a firm headlining material the year.

What happened with Verstappen in the 2019 Chinese GP

In the Chinese Grand Prix runs that followed, which were 2018 and 2019, the latter the most recent installation of the F1 contest in China, Verstappen didn’t really exhibit tremendous form. A P5 in 2018 followed by a P4 in the 2019 event marked the efforts of a driver who was keen to score more and do better but didn’t quite succeed.

It is important to note that in the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix, superior race pace belonged to Mercedes whose Valtteri Bottas contested closely with Ferrari drivers Leclerc and Vettel to etch a brilliant triumph, which was half a decade back in the day.

But given his recent rampant speed this year and a return-to-form victory at Suzuka, it is highly possible that Max Verstappen takes his first-ever win at China, a venue whose top step of the podium has certainly eluded the great champion up until this point.

What’ll happen in the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix, therefore, shall be keenly followed by all racing lovers.