George Russell scored his first sprint race win of the season after winning the battle from the Ferraris to be victorious at the Shanghai International Circuit.
It was a rather entertaining sprint event with the Mercedes driver fighting his old teammate Lewis Hamilton for P1. The lead changed several times between the Silver Arrows and the Scuderia.
The Mercedes driver started from pole for the 19-lap sprint and unlike a week ago in Australia, Russell held the lead through the opening corners before conceding the position to Hamilton at Turn 9 – the Ferrari driver had started fourth on the grid.
The pair engaged in a fight for the lead, swapping positions across the early laps until Russell made the decisive move into the Turn 14 hairpin on Lap 5, pulling a gap to both Hamilton and Leclerc.
Leclerc eventually got the better of his teammate, finishing just 0.6 seconds behind Russell, the leading drivers having made a late pit stop following a safety car that was called when Nico Hulkenberg’s Audi needed to be retrieved.
Hamilton recovered to third position having dropped behind Lando Norris, the seven-time world champion was forced to stack behind Leclerc in the pits.
Norris claimed fourth from Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes driver having suffered a poor start from the front row and had to serve a ten-second penalty in the pits after a collision with Isack Hadjar on the opening lap.
Although Antonelli had been passed by Oscar Piastri on the restart, the McLaren driver appeared to have made the move before the start-finish line and was asked to move aside for the Mercedes driver.
Piastri finished sixth as a result, as Liam Lawson claimed seventh ahead of Oliver Bearman. Neither Lawson nor Bearman pitted, which offered track position but left them vulnerable late on to a hard-charging Max Verstappen – who missed out on points.
Verstappen dropped to the back after a very slow getaway, but recovered and yet missed out on the top eight after fighting past Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly in the final stages of the race.
So an action-packed sprint race with so many lead changes and yet it is clear the Mercedes and Ferrari are very competitive. Russell continues his winning form by taking this sprint victory. It will be interesting if he can score another top result in the main race next.
Chinese Grand Prix, sprint race results:
1 George Russell Mercedes 33:38.998
2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +0.674s
3 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari +2.554s
4 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes +4.433s
5 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes +5.688s
6 Oscar Piastri McLaren-Mercedes +6.809s
7 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls-Ford +10.900s
8 Oliver Bearman Haas-Ferrari +11.271s
9 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Ford +11.619s
10 Esteban Ocon Haas-Ferrari +13.887s
11 Pierre Gasly Alpine-Mercedes +14.780s
12 Carlos Sainz Williams-Mercedes +15.753s
13 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi +15.858s
14 Franco Colapinto Alpine-Mercedes +16.393s
15 Isack Hadjar Red Bull-Ford +16.430s
16 Alex Albon Williams-Mercedes +20.014s
17 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin-Honda +21.599s
18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Honda +21.971s
19 Sergio Perez Cadillac-Ferrari +28.241s
Nico Hulkenberg Audi DNF
Valtteri Bottas Cadillac-Ferrari DNF
Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls-Ford DNF
George Russell claimed Sprint victory at the Chinese Grand Prix, finishing ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, following an early frenetic battle for the lead and surviving a late Safety Car.
The Mercedes driver started from pole for the 19-lap Sprint on Saturday, and unlike a week ago in Australia, Russell held the lead through the opening corners before conceding the position to a surging Hamilton at Turn 9 – the Ferrari man had started fourth on the grid.
The pair engaged in a tussle for the lead, swapping positions across the early laps until Russell made the decisive move into the Turn 14 hairpin on Lap 5, pulling a gap to both Hamilton and Leclerc.
Leclerc eventually got the better of his team mate, finishing just 0.6 seconds behind Russell, the leading drivers having made a late pit stop following a Safety Car that was called when Nico Hulkenberg’s stricken Audi needed to be retrieved.
Hamilton recovered to third having dropped behind Lando Norris, the seven-time World Champion forced to stack behind Leclerc after the late flurry in the pits.
Norris claimed fourth from the second Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, the young Italian having suffered a poor start from the front row and forced to serve a 10-second penalty in the pits after a collision with Isack Hadjar on the opening lap.
The second McLaren of Oscar Piastri finished sixth after being overtaken late on by Antonelli, with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson and Haas’ Ollie Bearman claiming the final points on offer after not pitting under the late caution.
Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Esteban Ocon (Haas) completed the top 10, and were followed by Pierre Gasly (Alpine), Carlos Sainz (Williams), Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and the second Alpine of Franco Colapinto.
Hadjar came home P15 from Alex Albon (Williams), the Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, with Sergio Perez the final classified runner for Cadillac.
Hulkenberg, the second Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas and Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad failed to finish, the latter having suffered an opening lap spin while Bottas suffered a loss of power.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/russell-wins-thrilling-china-sprint-from-ferraris-leclerc-and-hamilton.3HLw6daSkBmV0rPREohMwQ
Charles Leclerc has explained the “very scary moment” which cost him the chance of fighting leader George Russell at the end of the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix sprint race.
The Ferrari driver finished second in the Shanghai sprint behind the championship leader, having started fourth but overtaken Lando Norris and team-mate Lewis Hamilton during it.
Leclerc then had Russell in his sights for the lap 17 restart after a safety car caused by Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg, but suffered a snap of oversteer in the final sector – giving the Mercedes man a one-second advantage come the start of green flag running.
When asked by Motorsport.com about the incident, Leclerc said: “That was a very scary moment, I thought that was it.
“I saw George having a snap and I was like ‘okay, that’s an opportunity for me to be super close for the restart and hopefully take the lead’.
“So I was quite confident I would have rear grip, however when I went on throttle I completely lost the car 10 times more than the snap George had in front and I nearly lost it.
“Yeah, it’s one of those snaps that you don’t want any more degree of snap because otherwise you cannot catch it.
“I was full lock and luckily I caught it back and then same thing happened in the last corner where George lost a bit of grip. I was like ‘okay, another opportunity to try and get closer’ and I just had the same moment.
“So there was just very poor grip in these first two corners with the tyres after the safety car.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/very-scary-moment-cost-charles-leclerc-chance-of-f1-chinese-gp-sprint-win/10804963/
Max Verstappen was left with very few words after failing to score points in the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race, which continued a frustrating start to the 2026 Formula 1 campaign.
The four-time world champion finished ninth in the shortened contest at Shanghai, 0.3s behind the final points scorer Oliver Bearman, with problems from start to finish.
Verstappen had qualified eighth, 1.7s off polesitter George Russell, claiming that his Red Bull was struggling for pace all over with “no grip, no balance, just losing massive amounts of time in the corners”.
A poor start then made matters worse as the Dutchman struggled for revs off the line, which initially dropped him to 13th, and Verstappen was simply unable to perform a comeback similar to last weekend.
At the Melbourne season opener he started 20th due to a Q1 crash but ultimately recovered to sixth, with Red Bull in a fight against McLaren for third in the pecking order behind Mercedes and Ferrari.
“I have not a lot of words at the moment, to be honest,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Start, of course, is one problem that we have to fix, but then after that the balance is all over the place.
“Probably the highest degradation of everyone out there, which is just uncontrollable. Plus some other bits on the car that were not, I would say, well prepared. We just need to get our stuff together.”
It was the first time that Verstappen had finished a sprint race outside of the points, as his 13 Saturday wins is 10 more than any other driver in the shortened contests.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/max-verstappen-everything-that-could-go-wrong-went-wrong-in-chinese-gp-sprint/10804997/
George Russell was delighted to win a “pretty fun” Sprint at the Chinese Grand Prix, with the Mercedes driver admitting being “caught off guard” by his early battle against Lewis Hamilton for the lead.
Despite a good start from pole position, Russell lost out on P1 later in the lap when Hamilton made a lightning launch off the line to surge to the front from P4 on the grid. A close scrap followed in the next laps, before Russell eventually sealed the position.
The Briton went on to take victory, ahead of the other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in second and Hamilton in third. When asked afterwards about the dicey opening laps – which were much like his early duel with Leclerc last time out in Australia – Russell responded: “Again, yeah!
“I just spoke with Charles, we were like, ‘Actually, this is pretty fun in the end’! A lot of strategy at play and how you do the overtakes. It’s not easy.
“I hope it was a fun race to watch – usually the Sprint races are pretty boring – and then I got everything under control, [then there was the] Safety Car, but really happy to win.”
Describing the difficulties that he faced from behind the wheel, Russell continued: “It’s really windy at the moment. It’s not easy because this first corner’s so long and it only takes one lap of pushing too much and you can destroy your front left tyre, so it was just sort of managing, and especially when we were battling.
“And Lewis did an amazing job in the early laps – he caught me off guard – but [that’s] 20 years’ experience, so I’ve still got a little bit to learn there!”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/russell-reflects-on-pretty-fun-sprint-win-in-china-as-he-admits-being-caught.5ZXPtQ8Xlqghr8J65oDg1o