THE BIG PICTURE: Still not convinced China is giving us the full picture. Let's wait till Suzuka.

EVENT: They keep harping on how many fans were there. Probably true. And they did seem enthusiastic. And there was a fair amount on the hillsides. But the fact that the track announced a three-day attendance as a perfectly round, too large number makes us very suspicious.

TRACK: Another complete repave, this time even smoother. Made the front tires a bit unhappy, but overall the extra grip was acceptable and faster. But it didn't help Hamilton's plank...

SPRINT SHOOTOUT: Hamilton wins his first Ferrari pole but it won't count on his career pole numbers, McLaren aren't even the second fastest car, Albon shines again in the Williams, Tsunoda is once again the second fastest Red Bull family driver, and Lawson is wretched.

SPRINT: Drama upfront, entertaining moves in the back, and a very, very impressive Ferrari which got stronger as the sprint went on.

SPRINT START: Hamilton immediately slams the door on Verstappen as Norris gets sloppy a few turns later losing a bunch of spots.

QUALIFYING: Piastri gets his first career "real" pole, Russell shocks McLaren squeezing between them, Albon once again makes it to Q3 outdoing Sainz, Racing Bulls are outstanding, and Lawson is dead last again.

RACE: It kept feeling like it was going to come alive at any moment, but it never quite did. So, we had to be content with some great battles in the midfield.

START: Russell gets off the line well forcing Piastri to aggressively defend allowing Norris to get by Russell though Russell tried to fight back. Verstappen gets a rare poor start dropping two spots while oh my gosh the two Ferraris touch.

PIASTRI: Oscar was on it the whole weekend. Good luck McLaren trying to keep these two drivers content.

NORRIS: Lando seemed just a bit off the entire weekend.

MCLAREN: Kudos to them. They had no problem setting up the end for their two drivers to race it out. Only the brake issue with Norris prevented that from happening.

RUSSELL: Make the Mercedes just a little bit better, and George will be ready to pounce.

VERSTAPPEN: Can you imagine if Max is right? That the Racing Bulls cars are better than his? Hyperbole, sure, but still fun to think about.

LAWSON: All the talk at the start of the season was how long was Jack Doohan going to keep his ride. Perhaps the talk should have been how long will Liam keep his ride.

TSUNODA: Put. Yuki. In. The. Red. Bull.

HADJAR: An excellent weekend for Isack, especially after last week.

RACING BULLS: Unfortunately for Hadjar and Tsunoda, the team is once again throwing away points with wrong strategies ... and weak wings.

FERRARI: It's one thing to get disqualified. It's another thing to have both your cars disqualified. But to have them both disqualified for two different reasons is on a whole other level of incompetence.

LECLERC: Remember way back in Michael Andretti's prime driving days during the CART Indy car era when he would damage his car and then drive even faster than he did with a healthy car? That was Charles this race.

HAMILTON: The sprint win gave Lewis a boost. The race DQ had him shaking his head.

HAAS: What an absolute fabulous turnaround in one week for this team. And both their drivers got into the points even without the Ferrari issues.

BEARMAN: The confidence Oliver is gaining is great to see. Ciao!

OCON: That was one heck of a ballsy pass in the grass on Antonelli.

ALBON: Alex has finished ahead of Sainz in every qualifying and race session this year.

GASLY: Should have had that sandwich before he got into the car.

STROLL: Lance's result doesn't display how good a race he ran.

BORTOLETO: Doing pretty good for a "B-level" driver.

JORDAN: The last rock and roll star of Formula 1. There will never be another like Eddie. We'll all remember him with smiles on our faces.

F1 ACADEMY: They have disappointingly adopted the reverse grid sprint format for the first race, but it's the same distance as the "feature" second race. Sigh. Brit Alisha Palmowski won the first race after holding off a furiously charging American Chloe Chambers. Frenchwoman Doriane Pin returned to form taking the second race convincingly from the second starting spot.

WORD OF THE WEEKEND: DQ.

STAT OF THE WEEKEND: 1 -- as in kg, the amount both Leclerc and Gasly were underweight by.

HISTORICAL STAT OF THE WEEKEND: With the passing of Eddie Jordan, the most mentioned memory was that of the crazy 1998 Belgium GP which gave his team their first victory and a 1-2 finish. It's impossible to encapsulate it here in a few sentences. If you have F1TV, pull it up from their archives and watch the whole race.

TWEET OF THE WEEKEND: From the Günther Steiner account himself, @BanterSteiner:

If I were Ferrari I would go for another pit stop and kick off the other wing end plate. Who needs millions of fucking research and aerodynamics!

#ChineseGP #F1

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: Toto Wolff on Kimi Antonelli surprisingly winning the fan vote for driver of the race, "I think it's his looks. And the 16 to 18-year-olds target group."

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND RUNNERUP: After it was suggested to Charles Leclerc to use less curb because they were losing time in Turn 2, he said, "Nope."

SCHEDULE: Will all 20 drivers be in their same seats in Japan in two weeks time?

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