The Shanghai round was the first event where F1’s latest sprint format has been deployed, with the parc ferme restrictions on car adjustments relaxed between the two Saturday sessions.
This opened the possibility for teams to run very experimental set-ups in the shorter races, especially for cars starting outside the top 10 on the grid, but in practice, the competitors felt any changes they could make were more limited, even if they might be considered aggressively hopeful.
