Note: I prefer the original name to the name that it was popularized with, so I will call the game "Sternhalma" rather than "Chinese Checkers" in the following.
The game of Sternhalma is played with pieces on a hexagonal grid. Pieces can move one step to an adjacent space (spaces with a distance of 1), or jump over adjacent pieces, landing on the opposite side of the adjacent piece. Pieces can make multiple jumps in one turn. In the following, "normal" moves without jumping are not allowed even though this would be a strategic compromise in the real game.
A collection of $4$ pieces in a Z formation can advance $2$ steps diagonally in $4$ turns. Therefore, this configuration has a speed per piece of $2$ steps diagonally, where speed per piece is evaluated as the speed times the number of pieces. Let $x$ be one of the orthogonal directions (that is, spaces are spaced $1$ apart in that direction), and $y$ be a perpendicular diagonal direction. We can calculate the $x-$ and $y-$ components of the speed of a configuration. For the Z configuration, we can get an $x-$ component of the speed per piece of $3$ steps. What is the maximum possible $x-$ component? (We are not restricted to $10$ pieces, even though there are only $10$ pieces per side in Sternhalma.)
A faster speed would be important strategically in the actual game of Sternhalma. (Actually, the $y-$ component would be more important in the game, but this would also be important...)