McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia celebrates on the podium after winning the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix race at the Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai. (AP)

SHANGHAI, March 23, (Xinhua): Oscar Piastri took victory in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix, with teammate Lando Norris coming home second for a McLaren 1-2 at the Shanghai International Circuit.

Starting from his first-ever Grand Prix pole position, Piastri headed off Mercedes' George Russell at the start to hold his lead and set about controlling the pace, losing his lead only as the positions shuffled during the pit stop phase.

With none of the drivers having run the Hard compound tire at any point earlier in the weekend, there was much uncertainty over whether drivers would have to make one pit stop or two.

As it happened, the Hard tires held up better than most teams appeared to have anticipated, with Piastri and most others electing to make only one stop.

"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 tires behaved," said Piastri, who had lost out on a strong result last weekend in Australia when he was caught out by a rain shower and slid onto the wet grass.

"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 [compound] it was still a bit tricky but much better than yesterday, and then the Hard was a much better tire 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."

Behind Piastri, Norris passed Russell on lap 1 to take second but never got close to challenging his teammate's lead, and had to slow his pace considerably in the last couple of laps after complaining of a braking issue.

Russell rounded out the podium places ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who caught and passed Ferrari's Charles Leclerc with three laps to go.

Leclerc took fifth after driving almost the entire race with a damaged front wing end fence following a lap 1 tag from teammate Lewis Hamilton, but the Monegasque did not appear to suffer, with Ferrari even ordering Hamilton to let him by, such was his superior pace.

Hamilton was the only one of the leading runners to make two pit stops, but he was not able to use his fresher tires to make significant headway on the cars ahead of him, and the Briton - who had convincingly won Saturday's Sprint - finished an underwhelming sixth.

Esteban Ocon finished an excellent seventh for his first points for Haas, ahead of Kimi Antonelli in the second Mercedes. Alex Albon took ninth for Williams on his 29th birthday, while Ocon's teammate Ollie Bearman rounded out the top ten after a spirited drive overtaking several competitors.

After two rounds, Norris leads the Drivers' Championship with 44 points, with Verstappen second with 36 and Russell third with 35 points.

In the constructors' standings, McLaren leads the way with 78 points, ahead of Mercedes at 53 points, and Red Bull at 36 points.

The third round of the 2025 F1 season is the Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit on April 6.