{"id":537494,"date":"2026-03-13T09:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T09:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/537494\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T09:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T09:39:10","slug":"mercedes-superiority-at-f1-chinese-gp-is-pretty-impressive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/537494\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes superiority at F1 Chinese GP is “pretty impressive”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri<\/a>\u00a0labelled the Mercedes<\/a> superiority as \u201cpretty impressive\u201d after the Silver Arrows secured yet another 1-2 in Formula 1 qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mercedes is the team that has nailed the switch to these all-new 2026 cars, as at last weekend\u2019s season-opening Australian Grand Prix it secured a 1-2 in both qualifying and the race.<\/p>\n

It continued such rich form in Shanghai with George Russell<\/a> once again leading Kimi Antonelli<\/a>, this time the Briton taking pole by 0.289s with McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a> next fastest in third.<\/p>\n

The reigning world champion was 0.621s off pole ahead of fourth-placed Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, with Norris\u2019 team-mate Piastri in fifth and seven tenths behind Russell in qualifying for Saturday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

Piastri said: \u201cIt was reasonable. I think the step in grip from the medium to the soft was pretty big. But yeah, obviously the gap to Mercedes is pretty impressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, some things for us to try and work on. I think the car felt pretty good. It was a pretty decent lap. I don’t think there was too much left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those thoughts were echoed by his team boss Andrea Stella, who was more impressed at being in the fight with Ferrari<\/a> as it took fourth via Hamilton and sixth through Charles Leclerc<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s some indications of improvements,\u201d said Stella. \u201cEspecially I would say in the way we understand how to use the power unit, there was less variability in the first practice session, more clarity as to how we were using it during qualifying.<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was realised in some better lap times, which allow us to qualify behind Mercedes, that at the moment are out of reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it’s good to see that McLaren can fight for the runner-up position together with Ferrari, a good start position with Oscar and Lando, they both drove very well and it’s a good situation for the sprint tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

That comes after Ferrari was Mercedes\u2019 biggest threat in Melbourne with third and fourth, whereas McLaren was someway behind in fifth through Norris while Piastri crashed out pre-race.<\/p>\n

\u201cP3 is as good as we can do for the time being,\u201d said Norris. \u201cI’m actually pretty happy to beat both the Ferraris today because they seemed pretty good the whole day.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood position for tomorrow. Certainly things have been better this weekend, just because the track’s a lot more simple from that side of things, from a power unit side of things.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo everyone kind of falls in line a bit more, but we certainly seemed to get a good amount out of it at the end and it was close. So a good lap put me in a good position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri\u00a0labelled the Mercedes superiority as \u201cpretty impressive\u201d after the Silver Arrows secured yet another 1-2 in Formula…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,263305,817,264921,813,816,913,945,2333,266557,85],"class_list":["post-537494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chinese-gp","tag-f1","tag-f1-chinese-grand-prix","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mclaren","tag-mercedes","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-oscar-piastri-mercedes-superiority-at-f1-chinese-gp-is-pretty-impressive","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}