Driven piles are used widely both offshore and onshore. However, accurate axial capacity and load-displacement prediction is difficult at sand-dominated sites, and offshore practice is moving towards cone penetration test (CPT) based design methods developed from instrumented pile research and database studies. However, onshore use of these methods remains limited; there is a paucity of high quality case histories to assess their potential benefits clearly, and application in layered profiles may be uncertain. This paper presents new tests on prestressed concrete (PHC) pipe piles driven in sands for a major new Yangtze River bridge project in China, assessing the performance of the ‘new CPT’ and conventional capacity approaches, considering the influence of weak sublayers on base resistance and noting the marked changes in shaft capacity that apply over time.