New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nRussell once again left the field in his wake as he crossed the line with a time of 1:31.520, around three tenths clear of Antonelli.<\/p>\n
But in a more worrying sign for the remaining F1 teams, the closest rival was reigning champion Lando Norris who was more than six tenths behind.<\/p>\n
Aussie Oscar Piastri looked on track to produce an upset after setting the fastest time in the first sector, but he slipped back and will start from fifth on the grid.<\/p>\n
Having been the most vocal critic of the regulation changes, Max Verstappen was squandering behind and will start from eighth on the grid.<\/p>\n
His time across the line was 1.7 seconds slower than what Russell registered for pole position.<\/p>\n
After the qualifying session came to an end, the four-time world champion did not hold back over the radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t. This is undriveable. We never had anything this bad,\u201d Verstappen fumed.<\/p>\n
His frustration after sprint qualifying came following his shot at the regulation changes while also admitting he was conflicted about his future in the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to leave, really,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I had a bit more fun for sure, but I\u2019m also doing other stuff that is a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to race the Nordschleife. I hope in the coming years I can do [24 Hours of] Spa, hopefully [24 Hours of] Le Mans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m combining stuff to find other stuff that I find really fun as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have my team going on, so I have a lot of distractions at the same time \u2014 positive distractions I would call them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s a bit conflicting because I don\u2019t really enjoy driving the [current F1] car, but I do enjoy working with all the people in the team and from the engine department as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like a bit of a mind \u2014 I can\u2019t swear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I had a bit more fun at the moment here, but at the same time I\u2019m also very happy that the team let me do all these things.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just something that I\u2019m looking forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n
China Grand Prix sprint race starting grid<\/p>\n
1. George Russell<\/p>\n
2. Kimi Antonelli<\/p>\n
3. Lando Norris<\/p>\n
4. Lewis Hamilton<\/p>\n
5. Oscar Piastri<\/p>\n
6. Charles Leclerc<\/p>\n
7. Pierre Gasly<\/p>\n
8. Max Verstappen<\/p>\n
9. Ollie Bearman<\/p>\n
10. Isack Hadjar<\/p>\n
11. Nico Hulkenberg<\/p>\n
12. Esteban Ocon<\/p>\n
13. Liam Lawson<\/p>\n
14. Gabriel Bortoleto<\/p>\n
15. Arvid Lindblad<\/p>\n
16. Franco Colapinto<\/p>\n
17. Carlos Sainz<\/p>\n
18. Alex Albon<\/p>\n
19. Fernando Alonso<\/p>\n
20. Lance Stroll<\/p>\n
21. Valterri Bottas<\/p>\n
22. Sergio Perez<\/p>\n
Read related topics:China<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes remain the team to beat after George Russell claimed pole position for the first sprint race of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-537655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537655","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=537655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}