Formula 1 in China: I have never seen so many people in those stands

Formula 1 raced in China last weekend, just one week after the sport He started the 2026 season in Australia. Most teams handled the sport’s sophisticated new cars in China better, and the more traditional racetrack environment played better to the strengths of their hybrid powerplants, instead having hard enough braking zones to recharge the batteries without reducing engine power.

We have a better idea of ​​the network’s current suction order, at least for now. Each of the top three teams has some daylight and a close battle for quarterback honors. Meanwhile, the specter of insecurity is well and truly with us; four cars did not even make the start and seven (out of 22) did not qualify for the finish. It wasn’t a great weekend for the fans and drivers of these teams, especially if you woke up at 3am to watch the race. But F1 generally put on an entertaining show in Shanghai.

That’s a lot of fans

The sports city has been visiting since 2004. It is a classic turn-of-the-century facility designed and built by Herman Tilke. It’s a fascinating-looking venue with a pond-filled field, a wide grandstand surrounding the start-finish straight, and a ‘shang’-like layout that creates quite challenging corners, such as the spirally decreasing radii of Turns 1 and 2.

The grandstands on the start-finish straight are unlike any other in F1.

Credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Over the years, the city of Shanghai, once seen on the distant horizon, has moved closer and closer to the race track. And most of the years I’ve noticed that the bleachers in front of the back straight have never been used until this year.

“…This is the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen in Shanghai,” said Lewis Hamilton at the post-race press conference. “We went up to Turn 11, 12 when we had the driver parade and that grandstand has been closed for, I think, almost 20 years, and it was amazing. I was shocked to see it completely packed.”