F1 Q&A: Andrew Benson answers your questions after Chinese Grand Prix

Formula 1 returned to Shanghai for the first time since 2019.

Max Verstappen was in a league of his own, in a grand prix punctuated by two mid-race safety cars in quick succession.

BBC Sport's chief F1 writer Andrew Benson answers your questions after the Chinese Grand Prix.

Is it the car or the driver? If you swapped Max Verstappen with someone like Nico Hulkenberg, where would they finish? - Becky

This year’s Red Bull looks likely to go down as one of the greatest Formula 1 cars in history - as will its two immediate predecessors. And it’s clear that any top driver would win in it.

But that’s not to say that everyone could make winning in it look as consummately easy as Max Verstappen does. And the Dutchman’s team-mate Sergio Perez is the evidence for that.

Last year, Verstappen won 19 of the 22 races. But Perez was second behind him in only four of them - which is a pretty stark statistic.

This year, which has started with Red Bull looking - if anything - even more dominant than last year, Perez has been second behind Verstappen in three of his four wins, and failed to capitalise when the Dutchman retired in Australia.

To answer the question about Hulkenberg, he and Perez were reasonably evenly matched when they were team-mates at what was Force India, although Perez finished ahead in the championship in two of their three seasons together, and scored podiums which Hulkenberg has never managed.

Of course, there are several better drivers on the grid than Perez, who would all win in a Red Bull if they were in it rather than Verstappen - Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz and perhaps others, too.

But Verstappen is operating at an extremely rarefied level at the moment, and everyone in F1 recognises it. So, the answer to, is it car or driver, is - it’s both.

Max Verstappen leads the 2024 championship, 25 points ahead of team-mate Sergio Perez

What needs to happen in F1 to bring back the times when it was competitive and unpredictable? After a lifetime of joy it’s now boring - Shaun

It’s true that there is very little competitive jeopardy in F1 at the moment - Verstappen seems able to win from pretty much anywhere on the grid.

Red Bull’s rivals have hopes of being able to close the gap over time. But realistically, it’s highly likely Verstappen will dominate the next two seasons and it will take until the new chassis and engine regulations are introduced in 2026 for any meaningful change.

Is Lance Stroll good enough for F1? Yet another incident in China and completely outperformed and outclassed by his team-mate - Kevin

Lance Stroll clearly made a major error in ramming the back of Daniel Ricciardo’s RB at a safety car restart in China. But he is usually a perfectly competent F1 driver who definitely has talent - for example, his pole position for Racing Point in the wet in Turkey in 2020.

Having said that, most in F1 would agree that on a ranking of current drivers he would be towards the bottom, and it’s also fair to say he has had seven years to prove himself and he would probably not have a drive if his father was not a billionaire who owned the team for which he races.

As for being out-performed and out-classed by his team-mate, yes, that’s a fair comment. But his team-mate, Alonso, is exceptional, to say the least.

Stroll might not have beaten a team-mate in F1 other than Sergey Sirotkin at Williams back in 2018, but he has compared much better against all the others - including Sebastian Vettel - than he has against Alonso.

Where do you think Williams will end up long term? After seemingly making some progress last season it again feels another step backwards - John

It’s a bit early to say Williams have gone backwards. Last year, they finished seventh and after five races of this year, they are eighth. They have not scored a point yet, but they have had a very difficult start to the year.

Team principal James Vowles took a risk by going into the season without a spare chassis - which was a function of the organisation being stretched by his desire to bring it up to date, which badly needed doing. It bit him, because the drivers kept crashing the car.

Vowles is a bright guy with a clear vision for what he wants to achieve with Williams. But it should not be underestimated just how much work is required to turn them into a truly modern F1 team.

With Lewis Hamilton going to Ferrari next year, will he have a realistic chance of winning Grands Prix again? - Chris

At the moment, given the relative competitive positions of Ferrari and Mercedes, Hamilton’s choice seems like a perceptive one.

Whether he can win again will depend entirely on two things - can Ferrari produce a competitive car in the time he is driving for them, and will he be faster and better than Charles Leclerc?

No-one knows the answers to those questions yet.

What does the future look like for Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, with Audi targeting other drivers? - Miles

Not great, frankly. Sauber will morph into Audi in 2026, and be taken over by the German car company in the course of this year.

Chief executive officer Andreas Seidl is chasing Carlos Sainz, with Nico Hulkenberg also a consideration. Valtteri Bottas also has a chance of being kept on - he is a very solid performer.

Zhou Guanyu is not expected to be retained. But he has plenty of budget in which another team might be interested. But that’s only a might.

Sauber drivers Valtteri Bottas (left) and Zhou Guanyu (right) face uncertain futures with the team

In first qualifying, why do teams send drivers out so late that they only have one lap to get a fast enough time, especially Mercedes? Lewis was 18th in China - Janet

Tyres are limited in qualifying and, if a driver wants to have two new sets of soft tyres for the top 10 shootout, he cannot use two new sets in both qualifying one and two - he does not have enough.

He has to either use a used set for his first run in Q2 (or Q3) or use a set of mediums for a first run in Q1. Or just do one run in Q1 or Q2.

But that’s not what happened to Hamilton. He simply made too many mistakes, locking his front wheels into the Turn 14 hairpin.

This was influenced by a tailwind there that day, but as Hamilton said: “It was not my best qualifying.”

Changes to the set-up he had chosen as an experiment to try to further Mercedes’ understanding of their car did not help.