4 hours ago
3
George Russell laid down a further marker as the man to beat in the new Formula One season with a dominant run in qualifying to claim pole for the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix. He sealed another frontrow lockout alongside his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli, with Russell finishing more than half a second clear of their nearest rival.
The first sprint weekend under the new regulations is a journey into the unknown for teams and drivers and they had only the single hour of practice to understand how best to optimise their cars for energy deployment before qualifying.
Russell and Antonelli duly set the pace in Q3, with the British driver on top by three-10ths, followed initially by the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc but the Briton was six 10ths off Russell and Leclerc a full second back.
For the final hot runs neither Russell nor Antonelli could improve but McLaren’s Lando Norris put in a superb final lap to claim third, albeit still six 10ths off Russell’s pole time of 1min 31.520sec. Hamilton took fourth, Leclerc sixth and Oscar Piastri was fifth for McLaren.
Hamilton won the sprint in China last year, which turned out to be the high point of a very difficult season, and he was on similar form this time out, showing good pace. With the Ferrari enjoying lightning starts he and Leclerc may still expect to be in the mix in Saturday’s race, where the short format of 19 laps may give them an edge if they gain track position.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who has been outspoken in his disapproval of the new regulations, was unhappy from the off in qualifying, telling his team: “Someone check this drivability, it’s horrendous.” He scraped into Q3 in ninth place, with his teammate Hadjar similarly off the pace in 10th. On the final runs Verstappen and Hadjar could manage only eighth and 10th respectively and the Dutch driver’s ire continued. “This is undriveable. We have never had anything this bad,” he added.
Pierre Gasly was seventh for Alpine and Ollie Bearman another excellent ninth for Haas.
A decision over whether the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, due to take place on 12 and 19 April respectively, is expected to be made shortly after this weekend’s meeting in Shanghai. With the war in the Middle East continuing the sport is fast approaching the point at which a decision on cancellation is required to be made to prevent more freight being sent to Bahrain. The Sakhir circuit outside Manama is only 20 miles from a US base that has already been the target of Iranian attacks.
Some team freight is already stuck in Bahrain, having been unable to move since testing, and understandably there is no appetite for having more equipment dispatched only to become unretrievable.
If both races are cancelled, it is not expected they would be replaced given the difficulties in finding and then logistically supplying short-notice venues. The season would probably instead run to 22 meetings, with a gap of five weeks between the third round in Japan on 29 March and what would then be the fourth round in Miami on 3 May.
