The F1 2019 schedule reaches its third race of the season Sunday, the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. As will be the case for much of the 2019 season, ESPN2 will be the TV channel that will broadcast this weekend's Formula One race, with a start time of 2:05 a.m. ET on Sunday (or, essentially, Saturday night). The Chinese Grand Prix also can be live streamed via the ESPN app. Sunday's race in China will be the 1,000th Grand Prix in 70 years of F1 racing. It will be the 16th edition of the Chinese Grand Prix. Naturally, Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, the driver with the second most wins in Formula One history, will be the favorite to add to his total of 74 career victories. MORE FORMULA 1: Verstappen reveling in Red Bull's "amazing" new era Yes, Hamilton has won five times in China (four from pole), and no other driver has won in China more than twice. It is also true that Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas, starting second and first, respectively, on Sunday, have the opportunity earn Mercedes GP one-two finishes in each of the opening three Grand Prix races of the season for the first time since 1992, when Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese did it for Williams. But the dominance of the Mercedes team this season has developed alongside the struggles of Ferrari. The Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel seemed to have things figured out a couple weeks ago when they qualified first and second, respectively, for the Bahrain Grand Prix. But Leclerc finished third, and Vettal finished fifth. If Vettel fails to finish on the podium in China, the German will have failed to reach the podium in the opening three races of the season for the first time since 2008, when he was with Toro Rosso. Also looking to get back on track in China is Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen, who is third in the F1 driver standings behind Bottas and Hamilton. After his win in Mexico last year, Verstappen has failed to better his finish from each previous race; he finished second in Brazil, third in Abu Dhabi and Australia, then fourth in Bahrain. Below is all you need to know regarding how to watch the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix, the third race of the F1 schedule, including the TV channel, live stream info and start time for Sunday's race. F1 2019 Chinese Grand Prix start time, how to watch Date : Sunday, April 14 : Sunday, April 14 Time : 2 a.m. ET : 2 a.m. ET TV channel : ESPN2 : ESPN2 Live stream: ESPN app F1 TV schedule, live stream for Chinese Grand Prix As it has in years past, in the United States, ESPN will broadcast Sky Sports' presentation of 2019 F1 races. Below is the TV and live streaming schedule for Chinese Grand Prix qualifying and race presentations on ESPN platforms Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Thursday, April 11 Event Start time TV channel Live stream Practice 1 9:55 p.m. ET ESPNEWS ESPN app Friday, April 12 Event Start time TV channel Live stream Practice 2 1:55 a.m. ESPN2 ESPN app Practice 3 10:55 p.m. ESPNEWS ESPN app Saturday, April 13 Event Start time TV channel Live stream Qualifying 1:55 a.m. ESPN2 ESPN app Sunday, April 14 Event Start time TV channel Live stream Pre-race show 1:30 a.m. ET ESPN2 ESPN app Race 2:05 a.m. ET ESPN2 ESPN app Race (re-air) 7 p.m. ET ESPNEWS ESPN app Race (re-air) 11 p.m. ET ESPN2 ESPN app Chinese Grand Prix qualifying results, starting lineup F1 qualifying for the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix took place Saturday, April 15 at 1:55 a.m. ET and was broadcasted live on ESPN2 with a live stream available on the ESPN app. The F1 qualifying results and starting grid for the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix are below. Pos. Driver Car/team 1. Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 3. Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 4. Charles Leclerc Ferrari 5. Max Verstappen Red Bull 6. Pierre Gasly Red Bull 7. Daniel Ricciardo Renault 8. Nico Hulkenberg Renault 9. Kevin Magnussen Haas Ferrari 10. Romain Grosjean Haas Ferrari 11. Daniil Kvyat Scuderia Torro Rosso Honda 12. Sergio Perez Racing Point BWT Mercedes 13. Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari 14. Carlos Sainz McLaren Renault 15. Lando Norris McLaren Renault 16. Lance Stroll Racing Point BWT Mercedes 17. George Russell Williams Mercedes 18. Robert Kubica Williams Mercedes 19. Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari Chinese Grand Prix 2019 facts, notes F1 Opta facts:<doc-sep>How the race that Formula 1 dubbed its 1000th world championship bout – the 2019 Chinese F1 Grand Prix – unfolded The 1000th world championship-status race was somewhat uneventful by Shanghai standards. Its defining hard point was that Mercedes was simply a handy amount faster than Ferrari. The layout of the track allowed it to utilise its downforce advantage over Ferrari much more effectively than had Bahrain, meaning the Ferrari’s power advantage counted for less. The SF90 still isn’t the well-balanced thing it was in Barcelona testing and is over-using its outer-front tyre, this just compounding its small shortfall. Within that hardpoint, the outcome was then decided by the respective starts of the two Mercedes drivers. Poleman Valtteri Bottas lit up his tyres as they caught the white-painted start/finish line which is placed perhaps inconveniently close to the pole position slot. He suspected at that moment he had just lost the race. Lewis Hamilton had laid down a lot more rubber on his dummy start from the grid and got better traction, slingshotting him straight into the lead. This was the final detail of rescue of Hamilton’s weekend – which had begun with him a long way from Bottas’ pace and requiring him to make a major adaptation of his driving style to solve the tricky tyre equation here. “Once I was out front for a couple of laps, I could feel I had the pace and only then did I start to be confident,” said Hamilton. It was, of course, a confidence very well placed and he duly rattled off his second consecutive victory to head Mercedes’ third 1-2 from three attempts. Bottas’ shaky start also put in place a sequence of events that fell rather awkwardly for Ferrari. As Sebastian Vettel was forced to back off to avoid the slower-starting Mercedes into Turn One, so it allowed team-mate Charles Leclerc to get down his inside. Vettel was quicker than Leclerc this weekend but Ferrari took too long to ask Leclerc to move aside. By the time this did happen, Vettel had damaged his tyres and could make no impact upon the escaping Bottas. Had he run third from the start, maybe there’d have been a chance of fighting for second. The Ferrari switch-around then triggered a somewhat nervy series of strategy calls, as the team tried to give Leclerc a second bite at the cherry but succeeded only in losing him fourth place to Max Verstappen. Red Bull’s early call to put undercut pressure on the Ferraris triggered a domino effect that switched the race up-front from the pre-race one-stop plan to a two-stop. But whatever the number of stops, Mercedes – and Hamilton – had it well covered. “We have a very strong car, there’s nothing wrong with it,” said a pensive Vettel afterwards, “but I think we’re not able to yet put it in the window… I think we start to see a pattern and understand, especially throughout a grand prix distance, what we need – what I need – to really unlock this car. I think these next couple of weeks will be very important for us to understand where we need to go in the next months.” For the sake of the championship, it is to be hoped that Vettel and the Scuderia can find the key to unlock this car. Qualifying Despite losing what it calculated as 0.35sec to the Ferraris down the straights, Mercedes quite comfortably locked out the front row, Bottas edging out Hamilton for pole by a scant couple of hundredths. Unlike in Bahrain, the Mercedes were more than making back through the turns what they were losing out to the red cars on the straights – to the tune of around 0.3sec. Hamilton had been all at sea for much of practice, unable to bring the front tyres up to temperature by the beginning of the lap without overheating the rears. It took a lot of work before he wasn’t habitually locking up and ruining his laps, a problem made more serious by the fact that the track is too long to allow the tyres to retain enough grip for a second qualifying lap. Bottas always looked on top of this challenge and it was only into Q3 that Hamilton finally got in position to give the other Mercedes a run for its money. Bottas’ first Q3 run would ultimately have been enough to secure his seventh career pole, but he shaved a further few hundredths off it on his final run. “It still wasn’t a perfect lap,” he claimed, with understated satisfaction, “but I guess it was good enough.” Hamilton’s first Q3 effort got him to within two-hundredths of Bottas’ time but he failed to improve on his final effort. It was Hamilton’s turn to leave the pits as the car ahead this weekend – and the slipstream effect for Bottas down the super-long back straight may have been all that separated them. The W10s featured a new front wing with reprofiled endplate and a gentler upsweep of the outer edge, looking to work the outwash around the tyres more efficiently. It required a small modification before being allowed to run, as the FIA took exception to it not meeting the complex measurement zones where the elements interact with the endplate. Just as in Bahrain, the Mercedes were taking time out of the Ferraris on corner entry up to the apex, but losing out on acceleration and top speed. Past the traps Leclerc and Vettel were running at 202mph, with the Mercs at 197mph. This was with the higher downforce of the two rear wings tried by Ferrari in practice, the lower one used by Vettel on Friday giving a speed trap figure of 206mph. Just as in Bahrain the advantage was there only in certain engine modes and in general race simulation runs there was little difference with the Mercedes engine performance. Over the lap, the Mercedes cornering advantage was better than the Ferrari power advantage to the tune of 0.3sec, confirming that the Mercedes had somewhat underperformed in Bahrain.<doc-sep>The front-runners all made at least two pit stops each in the Chinese Grand Prix, triggered by Red Bull’s early stops for Max Verstappen. However the rest of the top 10 was filled by one-stoppers. They were led by Daniel Ricciardo , who had unsuccessfully tried to make the same strategy work in Bahrain. This time it paid off and he led the midfield home. He was the only driver to start the race on used soft tyres and complete it with just one further pit stop, for hard tyres. Alexander Albon used the same strategy but had the benefit of being able to start the race on fresh rubber. He did a superb job, however, to climb 10 places – twice as many as any other driver – to finish in the points having started in the pits. Red Bull took advantage of Pierre Gasly’s gap over his pursuers to give him a pit stop at the end of the race, put him on a set of (used) soft tyres, and grab the fastest lap of the race. But Gasly, who had been unable to get close to Max Verstappen’s lap times all weekend, only beat Sebastian Vettel to the fastest time by less than a tenth of a second. Ferrari had the opportunity to do the same with Charles Leclerc but, just as in Australia, chose not to. This was a curious decision, but perhaps not as strange as their hotly-debated order early in the race for Leclerc to let Vettel pass him. Before the switch the team asked Vettel if he could lap quicker than Leclerc. He replied that he could, but after the two swapped positions his lap times did not improve at all – if anything, he was slightly slower. As the graph below shows, Leclerc lost almost two seconds letting Vettel through. Had Ferrari not made this call, they would have been in a stronger position to cover off the threat from Verstappen. Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free 2019 Chinese Grand Prix lap chart The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below: Go ad-free for just £1 per month >> Find out more and sign up 2019 Chinese Grand Prix race chart The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below: Position change 2019 Chinese Grand Prix lap times All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below: Go ad-free for just £1 per month >> Find out more and sign up 2019 Chinese Grand Prix fastest laps Each driver’s fastest lap: Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free 2019 Chinese Grand Prix tyre strategies The tyre strategies for each driver: Stint 1 Stint 2 Stint 3 Stint 4 Lewis Hamilton C3 (22) C2 (14) C3 (20) Valtteri Bottas C3 (21) C2 (15) C3 (20) Sebastian Vettel C3 (18) C2 (17) C3 (21) Max Verstappen C3 (17) C2 (17) C3 (22) Charles Leclerc C3 (22) C2 (20) C3 (14) Pierre Gasly C4 (19) C2 (20) C3 (14) C4 (3) Daniel Ricciardo C4 (18) C2 (37) Sergio Perez C3 (20) C2 (35) Kimi Raikkonen C3 (25) C2 (30) Alexander Albon C4 (19) C2 (36) Romain Grosjean C4 (8) C2 (27) C3 (20) Lance Stroll C3 (20) C2 (24) C4 (11) Kevin Magnussen C4 (9) C2 (24) C3 (22) Carlos Sainz Jnr C3 (1) C2 (35) C4 (19) Antonio Giovinazzi C4 (7) C3 (23) C3 (25) George Russell C3 (22) C2 (27) C4 (5) Robert Kubica C3 (26) C2 (28) Lando Norris C3 (1) C2 (16) C3 (17) C4 (16) Daniil Kvyat C3 (7) C2 (18) C4 (5) Nico Hulkenberg C4 (11) C2 (5) Go ad-free for just £1 per month >> Find out more and sign up 2019 Chinese Grand Prix pit stop times How long each driver’s pit stops took: Driver Team Pit stop time Gap On lap 1 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 17.257 7 2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 22.196 4.939 21 3 Pierre Gasly Red Bull 22.301 5.044 19 4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 22.316 5.059 35 5 Max Verstappen Red Bull 22.365 5.108 34 6 Pierre Gasly Red Bull 22.408 5.151 53 7 Lando Norris McLaren 22.524 5.267 34 8 Carlos Sainz Jnr McLaren 22.532 5.275 36 9 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 22.644 5.387 22 10 Pierre Gasly Red Bull 22.722 5.465 39 11 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 22.749 5.492 18 12 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 22.921 5.664 22 13 Alexander Albon Toro Rosso 23.215 5.958 19 14 Max Verstappen Red Bull 23.223 5.966 17 15 Romain Grosjean Haas 23.261 6.004 8 16 Kevin Magnussen Haas 23.383 6.126 33 17 Lance Stroll Racing Point 23.466 6.209 20 18 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 23.506 6.249 18 19 Lance Stroll Racing Point 23.515 6.258 44 20 Romain Grosjean Haas 23.520 6.263 35 21 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 23.597 6.340 36 22 Sergio Perez Racing Point 23.733 6.476 20 23 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo 23.888 6.631 25 24 Kevin Magnussen Haas 23.964 6.707 9 25 George Russell Williams 23.965 6.708 49 26 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 24.083 6.826 36 27 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 24.107 6.850 11 28 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 24.227 6.970 42 29 George Russell Williams 24.332 7.075 22 30 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 25.137 7.880 30 31 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 25.184 7.927 7 32 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 26.050 8.793 25 33 Robert Kubica Williams 32.627 15.370 26 34 Lando Norris McLaren 33.638 16.381 17 35 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 43.206 25.949 30 36 Carlos Sainz Jnr McLaren 45.878 28.621 1 37 Lando Norris McLaren 50.738 33.481 1 2019 Chinese Grand Prix<doc-sep>Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes has pole position for the 2019 Formula One Chinese Grand Prix. It’s set to be the 1,000th championship race ever contested in the sport, and Bottas will have teammate Lewis Hamilton next to him on the front row. The action begins at 2:10 a.m. ET on ESPN2. It will also be live streamed via WatchESPN, ESPN App, and F1 TV Pro. Bottas has out-qualified Hamilton multiple times this season and currently holds the lead in the Drivers’ Championship standings, with 44 points. That’s one point up on Hamilton, with 43 points. Max Verstappen of Red Bull is next, then the two Ferrari cars of Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel. “I was just struggling with the car throughout the weekend, all day yesterday, today even into Q2,” Hamilton said after finishing behind his teammate. “I made a couple of changes with some settings on the wheel and some changes to the line and managed to bridge the gap. “Honestly I’m quite proud of the job I have done considering how far I was early in the session. Valtteri’s been quick all weekend, he deserved the pole.” Despite Ferrari’s advantage in straight-line speed, they couldn’t get pole or split the Mercedes, which is always their minimum goal at the very least. Vettel will start third, next to Leclerc in fourth. The Red Bulls are behind them, with Verstappen and Pierre Gasly locking out the third row. Then it’s the two Renaults of Daniel Ricciardo an Nico Hulkenberg. Finally, the American-owned Haas team managed to put both cars into the third qualifying session, with Kevin Magnussen holding ninth and Romain Grosjean rounding out the top 10 of the grid. Leclerc is still possibly the most intriguing driver on the grid. He’s young and hungry, and joined a Ferrari team with a multiple-times world champion as the lead driver in Vettel. But Leclerc has outpaced him at times. “Overall I’m happy on my side because after I was quite lost with set-up and my driving and everything and I managed to get back where I wanted in qualifying,” Leclerc said after a rough weekend. “It has been a messy weekend for me on the driving side so I’m pretty happy to be here. Also I’m pretty disappointed because I did a mistake in my fast lap so there was potential in there. But overall I think I should be satisfied because it could have been a lot worse after.” Below is all you need to watch the action on Sunday, including the full starting grid. How to watch the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix Date: Sunday, April 14 Location: Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai Time: 2 a.m. ET TV: ESPN2 Online Streaming: WatchESPN, ESPN App, F1 TV Pro<doc-sep>
Ferrari's fans are some of the most passionate in motorsport and head into 2019 hoping for their first Drivers' Championship since 2007. (2:30) Another race, another head-scratching performance from Ferrari -- compounded by a third consecutive one-two finish from Mercedes. Ferrari was supposed to be the favourite coming to China but it leaves Shanghai having raised even more question-marks about its ability to beat the German manufacturer to either title in 2019. Here's a rundown of the good, the bad and the ugly from the Chinese Grand Prix. Ferrari | Mature Leclerc impressive | Mercedes' decisive double-pit | Kvyat harshly penalised | Bottas beaten | Kimi has fun | Another Lewis milestone | Seb versus Max Ferrari team orders: For the third race in a row, the Ferrari pit wall attempted to dictate the order of its cars on track. After Charles Leclerc ignored an order to stay behind his teammate for at least two laps in Bahrain, he was compliant in China when asked to move over for Sebastian Vettel on Lap 11. To be fair to Ferrari, Vettel looked like the quicker car at the time and was being held up by his teammate, but as soon as he got clear the roles reversed and he faced pressure from a frustrated Leclerc. Vettel made a bunch of errors that saw both cars lose time and fall into the sights of Max Verstappen, while losing any hope of troubling the Mercedes pair. WANG ZHAO / AFP)WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images Leclerc couldn't resist pointing out the obvious over team radio: "I am losing quite a lot of time. I don't know if you want [to know] it or not, but just to let you know". Red Bull smelt blood and pitted Verstappen early to give him a tyre advantage over the Ferraris, successfully undercutting Leclerc and giving him a shot at a pass on Vettel on Lap 20. Arguably, the Red Bull had the pace and strategy nous to trouble Ferrari regardless of the team orders, but given the situation, Ferrari could have been the one attempting the undercut on the Mercedes duo with one of its cars rather than have them battle. Even though the end result saw Vettel secure his first podium of the season, it looked messy and left Leclerc with a disappointing fifth place finish. A strong head on young shoulders: We wrote after qualifying about how hard Leclerc is on himself, but again after the race he showed a good degree of maturity. The youngster refused to comment too much on how the race had unfolded until he had been part of a proper debrief -- it's not uncommon for frustrated younger drivers to vent their frustrations in the TV media pen directly after the race. The questions he said he has for Ferrari are very valid too, his race strategy was puzzling at best. Meanwhile, at Mercedes... If you wanted a perfect example of how differently the two main teams are operating at the moment, you just had to contrast Ferrari's clumsy execution of the race with what Mercedes did on Lap 36. With Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel stopping a second time late in the race, Mercedes was in a tricky situation -- dawdling too much over reacting with its own drivers could have placed either one or both of them under pressure. So what did they do? The slightly unconventional approach of pitting both its drivers at the same time -- known as 'double-stacking'. It's a brave call as it puts the driver running in P2 at risk if the first stop is slower than anticipated -- team boss Toto Wolff said after the race the team had "everything to lose" at that moment -- and often requires them to wait stationary for a short while, hence the name. But Hamilton's tyre change was so quick he had left the pit box by the time Bottas arrived there, despite being just some 4 seconds behind. Bottas barely had to slow down before his own stop, and both silver cars were back out on track with any potential danger averted. It was a clinical performance from a Mercedes pit wall that came under scrutiny for some botched moments in 2018. Hamilton even took a moment to praise the race strategists after the race and it's hardly surprising that he did so. On days like this, with Hamilton in the car and the strategists operating at the top of their game, Mercedes looks pretty unbeatable.