Leclerc's car was 1kg under the 800kg car weight limit and Hamilton's plank underneath the car had excessive wear by half a millimetre. The pair finished fifth and sixth respectively in the race but Ferrari came out of Sunday's grand prix without any points. Oscar Piastri beats Lando Norris before Ferraris disqualifiedF1 2025 schedule | F1 championship standingsGot Sky? Watch F1 races LIVE on your phone! 📱Not got Sky? Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW 📺Choose the sports notifications you want! 🔔Did Ferrari set-up changes contribute to Hamilton disqualification? Hamilton won Saturday's Sprint in brilliant fashion but Ferrari, like everyone else, still made set-up changes to adapt or improve for Sunday's race. Bernie says: "I don't think it's unusual to change set-up after the Sprint because you know in the Sprint that you're never going to run 100kg of fuel. "One of those changes could be raising your right height because you know you will have to start on higher fuel. "What's different between this and Austin two years ago [when Hamilton's Mercedes was excluded for the same reason], you were not allowed to change the set-up between the Sprint and main race, so when you got the plank-wear read in the Sprint, you couldn't react to it. "In the Sprint, there was a lot more management than the main race because they did more laps pushing on a hard tyre, whereas on the medium they did a lot of management in the Sprint, so it wouldn't surprise me if the wear and fuel usage went up in the main race." Did Hamilton's two-stop strategy have an impact on plank wear? Hamilton was the only driver in the original top 10 to execute a two-stop race, after starting on medium tyres and pitting for hards on lap 13 and hards again on lap 37 in the 56-lap race. BC says: "The two-stopper will lead to pushing more on each lap. The only slight counter to that for Lewis is because he did two stints on the hard, he goes through that graining phase, which does control the pace a little bit. "The only other thing for Lewis is, I don't know if he had any damage from the Leclerc incident? The FIA say there were 'no mitigating circumstances' and if Ferrari could prove damage or lack of downforce, they would have been able to do that but they didn't. "As for Leclerc, who did a one-stop, people were saying maybe a one-stop was possible. They didn't know how much the hard tyre would wear, so they didn't have an estimated mass loss for the hard tyre but they are allowed to take pick-up and they changed Leclerc's front wing. "I don't know where the loss in mass has come from." Do Ferrari have a fundamental car design issue? Interestingly, there were whispers in the paddock after Australia that Ferrari had to raise their car for the season-opener to avoid too much plank wear. While the team have not commented on the alleged issue, Hamilton being disqualified for excessive plank wear a week later has raised eyebrows. Bernie says: "It would be standard for everyone to raise the car in Australia because of the bumps and they are detrimental to downforce and plank wear. "In Australia, Ferrari were not that strong. Some of it was down to strategy but the performance in qualifying was not that strong, so maybe they have a car that's very sensitive to ride height in terms of aero performance. All of these cars are because they're all ground-effect cars, but maybe it is more sensitive than others. "I would be surprised that the Sprint in China was not a good enough indication that you would be illegal on plank wear. "If they have got what we would call a 'peaky' ride height, which means there's a very small optimum ride height that you can have a good aerodynamic platform in, that is an issue for a car. "You want to be fit to run a range of ride heights because of all these range of tracks. For example, in Austria there are intense kerbs so you want to add a bit of ride height there. "Maybe the aero platform is too peaky." What will Ferrari do now to ensure they are legal for Suzuka? Bernie says: "Fundamentally, it's the race engineer's job that the car is legal. Each race engineer for each car, it lies with them that the car is legal. "They will try and understand why it's illegal in both instances, in the weight and plank wear. It would be lovely to know if Leclerc was legal on plank wear. We know Lewis' car was legal on weight because all cars are checked on weight. We don't know if Leclerc was legal on plank wear because his car was not checked for it. "The teams will know how much the cars are bottoming out. They will go through all their procedures to see what was it that took them over the limit and which margin needs to be changed. "I don't believe anyone out there sets up the car thinking it's going to be illegal on plank wear and hope they don't get checked." What does all this mean for Hamilton relationship with Ferrari engineers? Bernie says: "It's a bump because Ferrari had the wrong strategy in Australia, in China they have been disqualified so should have done better, and they arguably had the wrong strategy because Lewis should not have pitted for a second time. "Lewis was really struggling in the car on Sunday and the car was illegal. The changes in set-up didn't react in the way he wanted to, or he wouldn't have been so slow in the race, and they've been illegal. "So it is a bump. If they go through it and they find whatever's wrong, then Lewis can get over that pretty quickly. But it's one of these little things that adds to the lack of trust. "When Sebastian Vettel came to us at Aston Martin, I really wanted him to think we were good at our jobs. "I really wanted him to go 'if she calls me to pit, I'm going to do it' because I trust the team. Now we have had a strategy thing, a radio thing and now disqualification, so it makes the driver unsure." Formula 1 heads to the iconic Suzuka Circuit for the Japanese Grand Prix on April 4-6, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - No contract, cancel anytime

Lawson has endured a dismal start to his Red Bull career, being knocked out at the first stage of all three qualifying sessions (including one in the Sprint format) and also exhibiting a lack of race pace, highlighted by the relative success of his team-mate Max Verstappen. Red Bull chose to promote Lawson from their junior squad Racing Bulls after just 11 grand prix appearances in two short spells across 2023 and 2024, favouring the 23-year-old over his more experienced former team-mate Yuki Tsunoda. Ferrari thrown out: What went wrong and what are the consequences?F1 2025 schedule | F1 championship standingsGot Sky? Watch F1 races LIVE on your phone! 📱Not got Sky? Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW 📺Choose the sports notifications you want! 🔔 When asked about it in his own press briefing a couple of hours after Sunday's race in China, Red Bull team principal Horner notably opted not to dismiss the report as false. Horner said: "There's always going to be speculation in the paddock. As I say, we've only just finished the race here. We'll take away the info and have a good look at it." Asked about Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko's claims that a meeting had been scheduled for next week to discuss the situation, Horner said "nothing specific" had been set up. Following Lawson's poor qualifying display on Saturday, in which he struggled to get his tyres into their operating window, Red Bull changed the set-up of his car, breaching parc ferme rules and condemning him to a pit-lane start. "I think Liam's had a tough couple of races, a tough weekend here. We elected to take him off the grid out of parc ferme to do a significant set-up change and so we've managed to get 56 laps of reasonable data from that," said Horner. "Obviously, we'll take that away, we'll have a good look at it, and, as a group, we'll do our best to support him. "Liam is obviously confidence-wise struggling with the car at the moment, which is why we made some significant changes to see if we could find a more confidence-inspiring set-up for him." Lawson told Sky Sports F1: "We are two races in and we are racing. You would love to have 60 test days. I know a lot of the other guys tested a lot outside of the season. "Unfortunately, it's not something we did but there's nothing we can do. It's just one of those things. It's not an excuse, just something I have to get on top of." Horner: I feel sorry for Lawson While Horner was careful to avoid making any definitive statements during the briefing, some of his remarks about Lawson's struggles pointed towards major concern within the team. Horner said: "I think Liam still has got potential, we're just not realising that at the moment. I think the problem for him is, he's had a couple of really tough weekends, he's got all the media on his back. "The pressure just naturally grows in this business, and I feel very sorry for him. You can see it's very tough on him at the moment. "He's a young guy, we've got a duty to look after him and we're going to do the best that we can to support him. "Liam's still a very capable driver. We know that, just for whatever reason, we're not seeing him able to deliver that at the moment." The opening two races of the season have come at circuits Lawson had not previously competed at, but Horner appeared to dismiss that as an excuse for his struggles. He said: "I think these guys, they get up to speed pretty quickly. We'll just continue to evaluate it. We've got a stack of data to go and have a look at. That's what we'll do." Tsunoda in line for belated call-up? Tsunoda has publicly expressed his frustration at being overlooked for a promotion, but has let his driving do the talking in the early stages of the season. While some extreme misfortune saw him miss out on points in each of the first two grands prix, he has qualified well and scored an impressive sixth-placed finish in the Shanghai Sprint on Saturday. Asked about Tsunoda's start to the season, Horner said: "Yuki is an experienced driver now doing a great job. He was unlucky, from what I can see from the race plots, with strategy and a front-wing issue today. But again, last weekend he was doing a good job." Tsunoda had the opportunity to drive Verstappen's 2024 drivers' title-winning RB20 in an end-of-season test at Abu Dhabi last year, but it was widely reported that Red Bull had already all but decided to replace the departing Sergio Perez with Lawson. Horner was asked whether Tsunoda's performance in that test would be more useful than his Racing Bulls form in understanding whether he would better cope with the Red Bull than Lawson has done so far. He said: "You look at the information, you look at the data, and at the end there are 400 engineers in our team that are all trawling through the 600 sensors that are on the car, so there's an awful lot of information that we have. "Yuki did a test for us, he tested very well. It's a useful data set, but that's all it is. You have to look always at the broader picture." Formula 1 heads to the iconic Suzuka Circuit for the Japanese Grand Prix on April 4-6, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - No contract, cancel anytime

This was the debate on Sky Sports' Saturday Social that went viral over the weekend. Nieve Petruzziello and Lawrence Bury 'Buvey' found themselves on opposing sides. Nieve was Team Salah, while Buvey was Team Ronaldo. Both agreed that Thierry Henry and Wayne Rooney made up the rest of the front three, but it was the right-hand side that caused conflict. Transfer Centre LIVE! | Man Utd fixtures | Liverpool fixturesLiverpool news & transfers🔴 Man Utd news & transfers🔴FREE Liverpool PL highlights▶️ FREE Man Utd PL highlightsGot Sky? Watch Man Utd games LIVE on your phone📱Not got Sky? Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW 📺Choose the Sky Sports push notifications you want! 🔔 Saturday Social ultimately went with Ronaldo over Salah, but the debate rages on, so we pitted two of our football journalists against one and another to make their case for each side. Watch the debate that went viral by clicking play on the video at the top of this page and have your say by voting in our poll... The case for Salah If you're picking a greatest XI, or a world XI, or a European XI, you pick Cristiano Ronaldo over Mo Salah. But in any of those contexts, you are selecting Ronaldo as a striker. If we are talking pure Premier League, Ronaldo doesn't even enter the conversation ahead of the Egyptian King. Salah's best Premier League season has surpassed Ronaldo's, he has played better more consistently in the league as well. The only argument for Ronaldo's selection over the Liverpool star is based on what he did after leaving England. So how can he be in a Premier League XI over Salah? Ronaldo won more titles, yes. But if we're basing it on titles then our right-side pick should go to David Beckham. Hands down, at this point, Salah has been the best right-sided player the Premier League has ever seen. And it's not even close. For what it's worth, here's my all-time Premier League XI (4-4-2): Cech, Neville, Ferdinand, Terry, A Cole; Keane, Lampard; De Bruyne; Salah, Rooney, Henry. Manager: Sir Alex Ferguson.Simeon Gholam The case for Ronaldo Mo Salah being spoken about in the same breath as Cristiano Ronaldo is an accolade in itself. Their individual awards don't even stack up despite suggestions Salah, playing in the English top-flight in his prime, has been better over a longer period of time. That's just in the Premier League too. Part of Ronaldo's greatness is that he was so good so young. He won the Ballon d'Or in 2008 and came second a year earlier at 22 years old. Salah has never even made the top three. For all his consistency, Salah has only twice featured in the PFA team of the season out of a possible seven since signing for Liverpool. Ronaldo, on the other hand, featured in five over his six seasons. That is voted on by Premier League players, by the way. Outside of goals, the Salah argument dries up, whereas Ronaldo brought more to the table to supplement his ability to find the net regularly. Ronaldo captured hearts and minds with his elegance and skill. If it's numbers over talent, then Thierry Henry should never be named in an all-time Premier League XI over the competition's greatest goalscorer, Alan Shearer. At least be consistent. This is my all-time Premier League XI (4-4-2): Schmeichel; Neville, Terry, Vidic, Cole, Scholes, De Bruyne, Ronaldo, Rooney, Shearer, Henry. Manager: Sir Alex Ferguson.William Bitibiri

By a small margin McLaren were once again the team to beat, but on a very smooth and grippy new surface which would yield a pole position time three seconds faster than last year, delivering the optimum lap didn't prove easy for any of the drivers. Mandatory minimum tyre pressures were high due to the high aerodynamic loads in the 270-degree first turn which also incorporates Turns two and three. And also Turns 12 and 13 onto the long back straight. Red Bull seriously considering Lawson-Tsunoda swap for Japanese GPF1 2025 schedule | F1 championship standingsGot Sky? Watch F1 races LIVE on your phone! 📱Not got Sky? Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW 📺Choose the sports notifications you want! 🔔 For a qualifying lap the drivers needed to hang around a little in the pitlane and the pit-out lap to let temperatures and therefore pressures drop down, not least because the minimum pressures were raised again by one psi front and rear overnight on Friday. This voodoo and imprecise process lead to a lot of variability. Hence we had the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen on the front row for the 19-lap Sprint, and the McLaren of Oscar Piastri and Mercedes of George Russell on the front row of the 56-lap race. Variability was the name of the game in Shanghai. Vintage Hamilton in the Sprint The Sprint was vintage Hamilton controlling the race from pole position, managing his tyre graining out front better than others, and tucking away very early doors his first victory for Ferrari. After the previous weekend in Melbourne which he called "disastrous", this was the perfect antidote, and remarkably the first time either he or Ferrari had won a Sprint. Piastri would wrestle his way through to a fine second place by overtaking a very fair and compliant Verstappen, as everybody was struggling with badly-marked-up tyres which were graining heavily. It's a process where the lateral grip is so high that it tears the surface compound and makes the tyre slide, which further exacerbates the problem. Championship leader Lando Norris had one of his occasional unforced errors and ran wide on the opening lap, and would only salvage a point in eighth place. The McLaren is clearly fast but a little on the knife edge to drive. These days the teams are allowed to make changes before Saturday afternoon qualifying in order to attempt to improve their cars for both speed and tyre management. And many seemed pretty successful at that. The great unknown for race day would be the performance of the hard compound tyre. On Sprint weekends, despite there being an extra qualifying session and a further mini race, each driver is allocated 12 rather than 13 sets of dry tyres for the weekend. And only two of those are the hard compound which nobody wants to try beforehand and waste a set, along with giving everybody else useful information free of charge. This was especially pertinent given how awful the medium tyres looked in the Sprint in terms of graining. Teams changed race strategy on the go Qualifying for the main race looked like a straight duel between Piastri and Norris at McLaren, which the young Aussie looked like he might always ace. And indeed he did, but a different out-lap strategy and a fine lap slotted Russell's Merc between them and onto the front row. The weather in Shanghai had unusually been delightful all through the event and Sunday was no different, if a little more cloudy come the race. Off the start Piastri pinned the slightly faster-starting Russell towards the pit wall such that George's entry into the high speed Turn One was compromised. This allowed Norris to sweep around the outside and seize second place in great team play. Verstappen's Red Bull snapped sideways and this allowed the Ferraris of Hamilton and Leclerc to seize the opportunity. Leclerc took a speedy tight line but would bounce off the serrated inside kerb and slide into his team-mate, breaking off the side fence of his front wing, which then proceeded to drag along the ground at speed, but luckily not puncturing Hamilton's tyre. Surprisingly, Leclerc would settle down despite this impediment, which was not changed at his pit stop, to be the fastest of the two Ferraris and Lewis would eventually let him through. It was a very feisty effort from Leclerc who must have hurt watching Hamilton take the Sprint victory 24 hours earlier. As it turned out, it would all be in vein. It was expected to be a two-stop race, medium/hard/hard, for an optimum glorious victory. Three drivers in the second half of the field tried a contrary strategy, and why not, by starting on the hard tyres. The early signs were that this mystery tyre was working well but it was confusing as Liam Lawson pitted his Red Bull to park the hard tyres on Lap 18, Ollie Bearman in the Haas on Lap 26, and Lance Stroll in his Aston Martin got to Lap 36 of the scheduled 56 laps. With pace management on their medium tyres, the leaders started pitting for the first time on Lap 14. Because McLaren were running a reasonably close one and two, Norris had to wait until Lap 15 and this put him behind Russell again. Another overtake was required and which was duly delivered in style with some hard racing heading into Lap 18, re-establishing the McLaren one-two. These tyres looked good and it began to dawn on teams that, against all expectations, they could make it to the end of the race without another pit stop which takes 23 seconds, if all goes well. McLaren are on a roll It was about now that we remembered Verstappen was in the race as he started to find some grip. Somehow on lower fuel, or simply track conditions, and probably even the realisation that he didn't need to babysit the tyres so much, this allowed him to catch the Ferraris. In fact Max would deliver his fastest and front-running lap time on the final tour, which is a bit confusing. Hamilton was pitted as there was nothing much to lose except putting him behind Verstappen but on much better tyres. Lewis would then push hard to the end of the race, a factor which may well have contributed to his eventual disqualification. The big question now was whether the hard tyre really could do 42 laps or more, and the answer was a resounding yes. Piastri in his usual understated way described them as "better than expected". Anybody who two-stopped such as Hamilton and the two Racing Bulls of Isack Hadjar and Yuki Tsunoda were not rewarded. Another question was whether Norris could mount a challenge on his team-mate and championship rival Piastri, but a disappearing brake pedal which became virtually non-existent on the final lap put paid to that, and Norris did well to just hold off Russell having another good day for Mercedes. It was the 50th one-two in McLaren's history and they really are on a roll these days. There was some fairly desperate racing, blocking, and overtaking going on down the field, not least by Liam Lawson and Jack Doohan who are in many ways unfairly feeling exposed in their drives so early in the season. There could well be changes. For the second successive race Fernando Alonso wouldn't finish, this time due to a rear brake issue. Pain for Ferrari after miscalculation The sting in the tail was the post-race disqualification of both Ferraris and Pierre Gasly's Alpine. Leclerc and Gasly were thrown out due to being marginally underweight. Rather like we saw last year in Spa with George Russell, a long run on one set of tyres uses up a few kilos of tyre tread. Also the race pace was strong and there were no Safety Cars, and so fuel usage was high, consuming more mass. Leclerc's broken front wing was allowed to be replaced but he was still underweight. Which ever way you cut it, that's a miscalculation by the team to not leave enough margin for all circumstances. Hamilton's car was thrown out for running too close to the ground and overly wearing away the legality skid block underneath by half a millimetre. This rule is in place to stop teams running these ground-effect aero cars too low to gain performance but then trashing super expensive floors every day. Especially in the Italian media, it will be painful reading for Ferrari this week despite the Sprint victory. Kimi Antonelli picked up some floor damage with debris on the first lap and had a relatively quiet but solid race to what would eventually be sixth place after the disqualifications. The fans knew something we didn't as he was voted driver of the day. Others to gain places post-race were Verstappen, Esteban Ocon and Bearman for Haas, Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz for Williams, and Lance Stroll for Aston Martin who all inherited more points. Norris leaves China with one more point advantage over Verstappen in the championship than before he arrived, but more ominously for him, Piastri is now only 10 points behind. Next up is Suzuka. It's going to get intense between the McLaren pairing. Formula 1 heads to the iconic Suzuka Circuit for the Japanese Grand Prix on April 4-6, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - No contract, cancel anytime

Pole-sitter Piastri never looked like relinquishing the win, the third of his F1 career, and made the perfect response after spinning last weekend at his home event in Melbourne. Norris was given a scare in the closing laps due to a brake problem but held onto second from Russell, who made it back-to-back podiums to start the season in third. Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc disqualified from Chinese GPFull Chinese GP race results | YOU rate the driversF1 2025 schedule | F1 championship standingsGot Sky? Watch F1 races LIVE on your phone! 📱Not got Sky? Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW 📺 Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton had finished fifth and sixth respectively, but were both disqualified for illegal cars, leaving Ferrari to come away from Sunday's race in Shanghai with no points. Hamilton was disqualified for excessive plank wear underneath his Ferrari, which is the same infringement that cost him second place at the 2023 United States GP when he was a Mercedes driver. Leclerc, and Pierre Gasly who was originally 11th, meanwhile were thrown out of the race due to underweight cars. Both drivers were found to be 1kg under the 800kg weight limit. After minor contact with Hamilton on the opening lap, Leclerc suffered front wing damage for the whole race but the FIA replaced the damaged wing with an official one and the car remained below the limit. Esteban Ocon scored his first points for Haas in his new position of fifth, ahead of Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli and Williams' Alex Albon in seventh. British teenager Oliver Bearman impressively charged through the field in the second half of the race on an alternative strategy to claim eighth. Aston Martin's Lance Stroll and Williams' Carlos Sainz were promoted to the points after the three disqualifications. Piastri cruises to victory as Norris overcomes brake issues Aside from the pit stop phase, Piastri led every lap of the Chinese Grand Prix and showed why he is a title contender this year. He helped team-mate Norris by squeezing Russell down to Turn 1, which allowed Norris to sweep around the outside and move into second place with everyone aware of the importance of track position in Shanghai. Norris was undercut by Russell though during the first, and only, pit stops for the leaders but the McLaren driver quickly got back into second place with a move down the inside into the first corner. At one point, Norris was making inroads into his five-second deficit to Piastri before he was encouraged to manage his tyres so never got within two seconds of the Australian. In the final six laps, Norris told the team he was suffering from a "long pedal" due to a brake issue so he backed off but had enough of a margin to fend off Russell by 1.3 seconds. Reigning world champion Verstappen maximised the performance of his car again in fourth when it looked like he was going to be sixth. After Hamilton decided to pit for a second time, Verstappen moved up to fifth and caught Leclerc before overtaking him with a stunning move around the outside at Turn 3. Red Bull and Ferrari will be concerned by McLaren's pace after finishing over 15 seconds behind race-winner Piastri, before the red cars were disqualified, on a track that traditionally demonstrates the best car aerodynamically. McLaren's one-two puts them 25 points ahead of Mercedes in the Constructors' Championship ahead of Suzuka in two weeks' time, with Red Bull 42 points adrift and Ferrari already 61 points behind. Elsewhere, in the largely incident-free race, Haas' Bearman made the alternative hard-medium strategy work with some great overtakes on his way to 10th, which became eighth. Red Bull's Liam Lawson showed little pace down in 12th and rookie Jack Doohan was given the only penalty of the race for forcing Isack Hadjar off the track on his way to 13th. Hadjar and Yuki Tsunoda were set to score points but Racing Bull's two-stop strategy put them both in the pack and they could not come back through the field. Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was the only retiree due to a brake problem. What the top three said Oscar Piastri, McLaren - 1st: "It's been an incredible weekend from start to finish. The car's been pretty mega the whole time. I think today was a bit of a surprise with how differently the tyres behaved. "I'm just so proud of the whole weekend. This is what I feel like I deserved from last week. The team did a mega job with the one-two. I'm very happy. "On the medium it was still a bit tricky but much better than yesterday, and then the hard was a much better tyre than everyone expected, or certainly than we expected. "To go all the way to the end like that was a bit of a surprise, but a happy surprise." Lando Norris, McLaren - 2nd: "A few fun moments. The start, I was hoping for exactly that, so Turn 1 went to plan. Then George got me on the pit stops. I was a little bit nervous but our pace was a lot better in the second stint. So a tough race just with the management. I don't think many people expected a one-stop today so it was good and Oscar drove well, he was quick the whole race. "Tried to get close but in the end just couldn't. He deserved the win and drove very well all weekend. I'm happy with second, it's good points and great points for us as a team with a one-two. Just how we wanted the race to go." George Russell, Mercedes - 3rd: "Really pleased with the P3. We knew McLaren were a smidge quicker than us, a few crucial points, but well done to those two. "I felt it from quite early on that a one-stop could be possible and it turned out it was slightly easier than we probably all anticipated. But, nevertheless, the car has been great this weekend and probably one of my best weekends in Formula 1 in terms of performance, so really pleased with that." Formula 1 heads to the iconic Suzuka Circuit for the Japanese Grand Prix on April 4-6, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - No contract, cancel anytime