Lewis Hamilton: First Ferrari win in Chinese GP Sprint ‘significant’ and shows why he was signed, says Karun Chandhok

Lewis Hamilton’s first victory as a Ferrari driver in the Shanghai Sprint is a “significant” early moment in F1’s box-office new relationship, according to Sky Sports F1’s Karun Chandhok.

F1’s Sprint format – which takes place at six race weekends through the 24-race campaign and offers additional points to the top-eight finishers – features its own qualifying session and short-form 100km race, effectively standing apart from the main Grand Prix which carries the big points and historical prestige.

Hamilton’s lights-to-flag win in the 19-lap Sprint in China on Saturday does not though extend his record of 105 race wins, with the prospect of him doing so on Sunday a longer shot after he went on to qualify for that main 56-lap Grand Prix in fifth after a less eye-catching showing from Ferrari.

But Sky Sports F1 pundit and former driver Chandhok says the Sprint triumph carries plenty of importance in itself on just Hamilton’s second weekend driving for Ferrari, which has seen him outpace new team-mate Charles Leclerc for the first time in all the key sessions.

“It is a significant day. Ferrari are playing it down, saying it’s only a Sprint, it’s only one day, but it is significant,” Chandhok told Sky Sports News.

“It was Lewis Hamilton in a dry race after a dry qualifying, when they were all on the same track on the same tyres, putting it on pole and winning.

“If it barks like a dog and smells like a dog, it is a dog – that was a race, and he won it.

“It wasn’t a Grand Prix, it was a third of the distance, but he looked in control. It was the Lewis Hamilton that we’ve all missed for the last three years. Rising to the occasion, getting out in front, breaking the DRS, metronomically rattling off those laps and winning the Sprint.”

‘This is what Ferrari have signed him for’

After celebrating his impressive Sprint win – his first in 19 attempts in the Saturday race since its introduction in 2021 – Hamilton said that “yapping” critics of his disappointing debut weekend with Ferrari in Australia, when he finished 10th in the rain, had made “uneducated guesses” about why that Albert Park race had proved difficult.

Chandhok added: “I just thought it was a messy race. Despite the fact he is Lewis Hamilton and arguably the greatest of all time, he is going to take a couple of days to bed in.

“I thought there were a couple of interesting things that came out of the Ferrari camp [on Saturday]. One from Lewis himself, saying that in Melbourne he went along with the way Ferrari did things because it was the first weekend and he didn’t want to go in there waving his arms about in terms of changing the way they did things.

“But coming into this weekend, he’s not waved his arms about but said ‘I want to change a few things we do with the car, some of the direction we go with the set-up, and try to find a sweet spot’.

“He talked about catching up with his race engineer, Ricciardo Adami, as early as Monday spending the week getting themselves prepared, getting the car in a sweet spot that they wanted for the one practice session, and they did that.”

And on the early impact Hamilton is already having on F1’s most-famous team, Chandhok added: “This is what Ferrari have done by bringing Lewis to the table.

“They have bought that experience and brought in over 100 grand prix wins and over 100 poles to just give them a little bit of a steer, not reinvent the wheel, and he’s there to deliver the goods on track.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Chinese GP schedule

Sunday March 23

2.40am: F1 Academy Race 2
5.30am: Chinese GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
7am: THE CHINESE GRAND PRIX*
9am: Chinese GP reaction: Chequered flag*
10am: Ted’s Notebook*

*Also on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1 is in Shanghai this week for the first Sprint weekend of the season at the Chinese GP, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime