McLaren boss, Andrea Stella fears that Shanghai will be a tough weekend for his team.

F1 returns to China for the first time since 2019, and other than the lack of data, especially in light of the '22 rules overhaul, the weather, not to mention the fact that the track has been entirely resurfaced, presents all the teams with a bit of a headache, not helped by the fact that being a Sprint weekend they only have one practice session in which to prepare.

However, with its hairpins, twisty corners and kilometre-long straight Shanghai is expected to be a particular nightmare for the Woking team.

"The difficulties in China definitely will be associated with not having been there for a long time," says Stella. "Difficulties can also be seen from the opportunity side," he adds, "because everyone will have difficulties, which means you can gain an advantage.

"However, where I'm a little bit more prudent about China is that there's so much low speed and so many hairpins that definitely should not be the best track for us at this stage of the season.

"Hopefully we'll, you know, we won't be talking too much about car layout at the end of the season," he continues. "Once we have developed the car, but for where we are at the moment, hairpins and low speed, they seem to be a place where we lose some time. So, I think China may be a bit of a damage limitation for us.

"Then, from Miami onward, hopefully we start a kind of, you know, a better stage of this 2024 season and more to come in the second part of the season."

Understandably, he is among those expressing concern that Shanghai has been chosen as a Sprint weekend.

"Let's say, ideally, you wouldn't have had China as a Sprint event," he says. "Seen from a team point of view, let's say, you know, like it just adds many complications. At the same time, it's not something that we are in condition to influence. So, you know, we get this out of our heads and we focus on doing a good job.

"But considering, like I said before, that we may have some inherent limitations with our car, I'd rather have the others not to have too much practice. So, let's keep it short and then we try to maximise the potential of what you can do in one session."