China… Thank you for everything. What a weekend we had as a club, as fans and for Mercedes-Benz AMG across the sprint and the Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit. We made history, shed tears and after all that, we hardly have any time to catch our breath with highly anticipated sportscar racing coming this weekend. Before we get carried away celebrating the F1 successes over in Asia, let’s cover what we have going here in North America and Europe upcoming.
Starting stateside, the 12 Hours of Sebring is this weekend as IMSA returns to racing action with Lone Star Racing and Winward Racing both looking to claim the top spot in GTD, with Winward looking to go back to back in the 12H following their success at the Rolex 24 in January. In Germany, the NLS series has race 2 to look forward to (after race 1 was cancelled due to snow). This gives us the first opportunity to see the Winward Europe and Verstappen.com on track in anger vying for the top spot on the podium. To clarify, this is not the 24H, this is a qualifying race over a couple of hours as the 24H is in May.
Looking back to the action that already happened on Saturday and Sunday, we can only describe it as the George and Kimi exhibition. For sprint qualifying, George once again locked down the pole with Kimi securing the 2nd place, but come time for the race, both had poor starts with George battling with Leclerc and Hamilton before pulling away to win. Kimi rebounded after a penalty and lost positions from the start to a 5th placed finish gaining important points. In the Grand Prix, Kimi started in the pole position with George sitting in the 2nd spot for the start. As the lights went out both AMGs went wheel to wheel and as a result both Ferrari’s swooped by. Beyond George battling with the Prancing Horses, the race was straightforward and uneventful for Kimi as he secured his first career win- the first Italian to do so since 2006 and the second youngest ever Grand Prix winner. Back to back 1-2s as Mercedes looks to roll their success into the upcoming rounds.