Chinese Grand Prix 2026: Russell takes sprint pole
Mercedes dominated the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix, with George Russell leading teammate Kimi Antonelli.
Russell was 0.289 seconds ahead of the Italian and a massive 0.621 seconds ahead of McLaren’s first non-Mercedes world champion, Lando Norris.
Lewis Hamilton finished fourth for Ferrari, just 0.02 seconds behind Norris, while McLaren’s Oscar Piastri finished fifth, ahead of Charles Leclerc’s second Ferrari.
Red Bull pilot Max Verstappen could only take eighth place, 1.734 seconds behind Pierre Gasly’s Alpine race.
Haas’ Oliver Bearman finished ninth ahead of the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar.
Russell’s pole position was his second in six days after qualifying and winning the season-opening race in Australia.
The qualifying session followed a very similar pattern to Melbourne; Russell was around 0.3 seconds faster than Antonelli, with the fastest Ferrari behind by a similar margin.
Russell said: “The car was really great all day and the engine was performing more normally compared to Melbourne when there were these big dips (when the engine went into energy recovery mode) and it was a bit rough to drive. The focus since Melbourne has been on improving the launches.”
Norris, who had a tough race in Melbourne, said: “I’m happy with the result. We’re third for now, I’m pretty happy we beat both Ferraris. It’s a good lap and puts me in a good position for tomorrow.”
Hamilton, who spun in practice earlier in the day, added: “I was really pleased with the session. P1 was a tough session with spins.
“We are losing a lot of time on the straights, we have a lot to do to improve power.
“Mercedes have done a great job and we need to step up and push to close the gap. From a car perspective the car feels great and we can compete in the corners, but that’s when you’re running out of power.”
Ferrari were much more competitive in Australia, with Leclerc jumping from fourth at the start to the lead.
Leclerc said he lost 0.5 seconds from the back straight on his last run; this was more than the difference between himself and Hamilton.
“For some reason the Mercedes power unit has a lot of lap times in qualifying, but in the race we are much closer.”
The biggest outliers were Red Bull. Hadjar qualified third in Australia but both cars were well off the pace in Shanghai.
Verstappen, who crashed on his first tour in Australia after his rear brakes locked up at the first corner, completed at least one session and was around 0.5 seconds ahead of his teammate.
But that will be no consolation for the four-time champion when the lead is so wide.
Verstappen said: “The whole day was a disaster in terms of pace, no grip, no balance, we lose too much time in the corners and so you start to trigger other problems.”
