{"id":15665,"date":"2026-03-13T10:53:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/?p=15665"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:53:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:53:39","slug":"chinese-gp-george-russell-beats-kimi-antonelli-to-sprint-pole-by-two-tenths-with-mercedes-retaining-clear-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/chinese-gp-george-russell-beats-kimi-antonelli-to-sprint-pole-by-two-tenths-with-mercedes-retaining-clear-advantage\/","title":{"rendered":"CHINESE GP \u2013 George Russell beats Kimi Antonelli to sprint pole by two tenths, with Mercedes retaining clear advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell has beaten his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli by just under two tenths to secure pole for the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix. The Englishman continued to look like the man to beat on Friday, having also led his teammate by a tenth in FP1.<\/p>\n

Russell further underlined his status as favourite for the championship, having won from pole five days ago in Melbourne, he topped all three parts of sprint qualifying and on his final run in SQ3 pulled out the advantage over Antonelli, setting a 33.030. The qualifying session followed a very similar pattern to Melbourne – Russell about three tenths quicker than Antonelli, and the quickest Ferrari a similar chunk further behind.<\/p>\n

However, Russell failed to improve on his second attempt, while Antonelli and Charles Leclerc improved their times, but not their position.\u00a0 Mercedes was always likely to show more of an advantage at the Shanghai International Circuit, with the McLaren of Lando Norris six tenths down in third.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s pole sitter Lewis Hamilton a further two hundredths behind. However, Norris may find himself on the front row with Antonelli under investigation for impeding the world champion in SQ2.<\/p>\n

Hamilton had proved closer and more competitive than in Melbourne qualifying, despite a spin for the seven-time Shanghai winner in practice, which he described as \u201ctricky\u201d.<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri split the two Ferraris; he was six hundredths behind Hamilton as he went a quarter of a second faster than Leclerc. The Monacan looked on course for third before his final attempt, struggling with energy deployment, which left him a second off pole and ahead of Pierre Gasly by over three tenths.<\/p>\n

Leclerc believes the deployment issue cost him half a second on the 1km back straight, but the gap to Hamilton is more than that. Ferrari looks to be much more competitive in the race, in which Leclerc leapt into the lead from fourth place on the grid at the start. Ferrari decided not to run its radical ‘flip-flop’ rear wing, which had made an appearance on both cars during practice.<\/p>\n

Russell said, \u201cThe car has been feeling amazing. After Melbourne, we had a really good car and the engine has been performing really well and today was a real joy to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonelli added, \u201cThe pace is very strong but just didn’t put the lap together at the end on the softs. Still work to do and all to play for tomorrow. I’m feeling good in the car. It’s more about details and tomorrow we will try to have a good start.”<\/p>\n

Norris, “I’m just happy with the result. P3 is as good as we can do for the time being. I’m actually happy to beat both of the Ferraris today because they seemed pretty good the whole day.”<\/p>\n

Overall, Norris said he’s satisfied with his position for the first sprint. “Certainly things have been better this weekend just because the track is a lot more simple from the power unit side of things,” he added<\/p>\n

Gasly, underlining the advantage and boost given by Alpine\u2019s switch to Mercedes power, was nearly half a second faster than Max Verstappen. The four-time champion left it late in SQ2 to get himself out of the drop zone, complaining about the \u201chorrendous\u201d drivability.<\/p>\n

Ollie Bearman split the two Red Bulls; the Haas driver was a tenth and a half behind Verstappen who described Friday as a \u201cdisaster,\u201d and was three tenths faster than Isack Hadjar, completing the top ten. The whole top ten covered by two seconds.<\/p>\n

The four-time champion said: “The whole day has been a disaster pace-wise, no grip, no balance, just losing massive amounts of time in the corners and then because of that you start triggering other problems.”<\/p>\n

Nico Hulkenberg put his Audi eleventh, the German missing out on SQ3 by a hundredth and a half as he went four thousandths faster than Esteban Ocon. Ocon was eight hundredths faster than Liam Lawson, while Gabriel Bortoleto aborted his final attempt after a high-speed moment at the final corner.<\/p>\n

Arvid Lindblad put his Racing Bull fourteenth, going over three tenths faster than Franco Colapinto.<\/p>\n

Carlos Sainz missed out on SQ2 by over a tenth and a half as he went nearly half a second faster than Alex Albon, the British-Th\u00e1i driver, who made a mistake and ran wide on his second attempt. Williams is known to have an overweight car having failed the crash test before the Catalan Test in January.<\/p>\n

Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin nearly six tenths faster than teammate Lance Stroll. But given the start to the year, it was a positive day, no reliability issues so far in China after finding a way to isolate the batteries from the engine vibration that had caused so many problems in pre-season testing and restricted miles in Australia.<\/p>\n

Alonso said, “We try to complete laps and improve on the chassis side. The engine is what it is. We don’t have any more stock on the power unit, so any problems could be very difficult for the rest of the weekend, so we need to survive on reliability and learn as much as we can.”<\/p>\n

Valtteri Bottas was the final driver to set a time going over a second behind Stroll. The Finn\u2019s Cadillac teammate, Sergio Perez, didn\u2019t take part in sprint qualifying due to a fuel system issue, after a similar gremlin took Bottas out of the race in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Related<\/h2>\n