{"id":538879,"date":"2026-03-14T00:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/538879\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T00:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:45:17","slug":"sprint-race-start-time-qualifying-oscar-piastri-position-how-to-watch-shanghai-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/538879\/","title":{"rendered":"Sprint race start time, qualifying, Oscar Piastri position, how to watch, Shanghai updates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Championship pacesetter George Russell took pole position on Friday for the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race, leading a Mercedes one-two ahead of Kimi Antonelli. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/motorsport\/formula-one\/russell-statement-leaves-rivals-reeling-ferrari-gets-key-offtrack-win-f1-talking-points\/news-story\/8b45c35ade63d46fe44bada9163cf483\" title=\"www.foxsports.com.au\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Russell clocked 1min 31.520sec around the 5.451km Shanghai International Circuit<\/a>, 0.289sec quicker than Antonelli with world champion Lando Norris 0.621sec behind his fellow Englishman in third. <\/p>\n<p>Joining Norris on the second row for Saturday morning\u2019s 19-lap race will be Lewis Hamilton, winner of the China sprint a year ago. <\/p>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/poster-fallback.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The seven-time Formula One world champion was fourth in his Ferrari, 0.641sec slower than Russell. <\/p>\n<p>Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au?pg=f1&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkmotorsport-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-mtr-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" title=\"kayosports.com.au\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Join now and get your first month for just $1 &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe car\u2019s been feeling amazing,\u201d said Russell, who leads the championship after winning the season-opening race in Australia last weekend. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew after Melbourne we had a really good car. The engine\u2019s performing really well. And today it was a real joy to drive, so I\u2019m happy,\u201d added Russell. <\/p>\n<p>Italian teenager Antonelli said he had room for improvement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pace is very strong. Just didn\u2019t put the lap together at the end on the softs. Still some work to do. It\u2019s all to play for tomorrow,\u201d said the 19-year-old. <\/p>\n<p>Piastri ready to move on after Aus GP | 01:31<\/p>\n<p>The McLarens left it till late in the final qualifying session to go out for their single flying lap, hoping to take advantage of the track at its quickest. <\/p>\n<p>It paid off as Norris got ahead of the two Ferraris and Oscar Piastri split them, coming in fifth fastest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cActually pretty happy to beat both of the Ferraris today because they seem pretty good the whole day,\u201d said Norris.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSatisfied, good position for tomorrow. Certainly things have been better this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton, fourth last week in Australia, said he had enjoyed a good Friday again in Shanghai, where he took a surprise sprint pole this time last year for Ferrari. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cReally pleased with the session, my team did a really great job,\u201d said Hamilton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe car generally felt great, it\u2019s just we\u2019re losing on the straights (to Mercedes), so yeah we have a lot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His teammate Charles Leclerc, third in Melbourne last week, was sixth fastest. Pierre Gasly was seventh for Alpine. <\/p>\n<p>The Chinese GP Sprint commences on Saturday at 2pm AEDT.<\/p>\n<p>Follow all the action in our live blog below! Can\u2019t see the blog? <a href=\"https:\/\/go.arena.im\/live\/fox-sports-australia\/4FR7d5m?v=2\" title=\"go.arena.im\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Championship pacesetter George Russell took pole position on Friday for the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race, leading a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-538879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538879","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=538879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}