F1 2026 China GP LIVE: George Russell favourite in qualifying after thrilling sprint battle with Lewis Hamilton – UK Times

Relief for Ferrari as their man puts in a clean lap to go third.

At the bottom, it is once again Williams, Aston Martin and Cadillac in the bottom-six right now.

Bottom-six (17-22): Albon, Sainz, Alonso, Bottas, Stroll, Perez

Albon a tenth off Lindblad in 15th. 3:00 to go

A loss of control at turn 9 means Hamilton had to abort his lap.

“The car feels good, just lost it,” he said.

Back to traditional grand prix qualifying for the grid now as we get underway with Q1!

18 minutes where we’ll lose the slowest six drivers from the rest of qualifying.

Cadillac, Aston Martin and Williams will be striving to find some much-needed time here…

1. George Russell (Mercedes) – 8 points

2. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 7

3. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) – 6

4. Lando Norris (McLaren) – 5

5. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) – 4

6. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) – 3

7. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) – 2

8. Oliver Bearman (Haas) – 1

Hamilton said: “It was a close battle and their speed on the straights was a little bit too much. I put up a good fight, but I killed my tyres.

“It is a much better car, and I have been a part of developing that. But I was in the lead at one point, so to finish third was not the greatest, but I tried and will do my best again later.”

George Russell overcame Lewis Hamilton’s challenge to win the battle of the Britons and take a thrilling sprint race victory at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Russell and Hamilton exchanged the lead six times inside the opening five laps in Shanghai, with the former eventually prevailing to continue his flawless start to the new season.

Hamilton had to settle for third as Russell – a winner in Australia six days ago – took the chequered flag 0.6 seconds clear of Charles Leclerlc.

Lando Norris finished fourth, one place clear of Russell’s Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli. Max Verstappen started eighth and was ninth at the end following a poor start which left him way down in 16th. Russell now leads Antonelli by 11 points in the championship standings.

George Russell put his Mercedes on pole for the sprint – can he do it again?

He’s the clear favourite!

Formula One is set to cancel grand prix events in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia next month amid heightened tension in the Middle East region.

Bahrain’s capital, Manama, has been attacked by Iranian missiles, while locations in Saudi Arabia have also been targeted. Just on Monday, according to the state-owned Bahrain News Agency, 32 people were injured near Manama after an Iranian drone attack.

With less than a month until F1 returns to the Sakhir circuit, 30km south of Manama, on 12 April and with the Saudi race in Jeddah a week later on 19 April, a cancellation of both events now looks likely. The Independent understands the cancellations will be officially confirmed over the next 48 hours, while the Chinese Grand Prix takes place in Shanghai this weekend.

There has also been speculation as to whether F1 could replace the races, with tracks in Italy, Turkey and Portugal suggested for a mid-April date. Yet, inevitably, the last-minute nature makes the logistics difficult and it is understood the sport will now have a five-week gap between the Japanese Grand Prix (29 March) and the Miami Grand Prix (3 May).

“He can keep the margin, the driving is perfect, it’s nice and easy,” the 1997 world champion told Sky Sports.

“That shows a car which is well-born and designed with a lot of his input.”

“Really pleased with the session, engineers did a fantastic job to turn the car around, P1 was a tricky session, car felt great. we’re losing a lot of time on the straights, we have a lot of work to do, we have to push back in Maranello to improve in power.

“It’s something we were conscious of last year, we thought that Mercedes started earlier, they’ve done a fantastic job, we have to push to close the gap, when you’re down on power, it is what it is.

On rear-wing: “I don’t know why we went back on it, we rushed it to get it here, they did a great job. It was maybe a little bit premature; we’ll work to bring it back when it’s ready.”