[2] Lewis Hamilton was the defending race winner and went into the weekend with a three-point lead in the World Drivers' Championship over Sebastian Vettel, who had surprised the field by taking victory in the previous round at Malaysia.

[3] After Sebastian Vettel's surprise victory two weeks prior in Malaysia, eyes were on Ferrari whether they would be able to continue their good race pace in China and challenge the Mercedes for the win.

[4] All ten teams taking part in the 2015 Formula One World Championship participated in the race, with Marussia hoping to finally be able to run both cars continually, after Will Stevens had failed to start in Malaysia.

Both Mercedes drivers ran wide on different parts of the track, as did Felipe Massa, who spun his Williams in turn 14 towards the end of the session.

The left rear brake of Daniil Kvyat started to smoke after a pit stop, leading the team to investigate the matter further.

The session was further disrupted by the appearance of a local man running across the main straight, jumping into pit lane before being stopped by security after entering the Ferrari garage, where he apparently stated he wanted to "try a car".

Teammate Jenson Button was called into the pit lane as well, citing a similar problem with the engine, but was able to continue later in the session.

[12] Felipe Massa experienced smoke in his cockpit both on Friday and Saturday, apparently caused by the new titanium plates underneath the cars which also create sparks when driving over bumps on the track.

[7] In the session, which started at 15:00 local time (UTC +8) on Saturday afternoon, Lewis Hamilton took the third out of three possible pole positions of the season, narrowly beating his teammate by 0.04 seconds.

[15] The second session saw Hamilton post the fastest time, even though his car lost contact to pit lane and his seat overheating once more.

Daniil Kvyat suffered engine problems and failed to make it into Q3, as did the second Force India of Sergio Pérez, both Toro Rosso drivers and the Lotus of Pastor Maldonado.

[14][15] When the race started at 14:00 local time (UTC +8), Kimi Räikkönen managed to pass both Williams cars on the first lap to move up to fourth, while Nico Rosberg was able to fend off Sebastian Vettel for second.

Rosberg reacted to that statement by saying: "It's just now interesting to hear from you, Lewis, that you were just thinking about yourself with the pace in front, and necessarily that was compromising my race.