{"id":539519,"date":"2026-03-14T07:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T07:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/539519\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T07:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T07:52:11","slug":"chinese-grand-prix-qualifying-times-results-max-verstappen-oscar-piastri-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/539519\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Grand Prix qualifying times, results, Max Verstappen, Oscar Piastri finish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes continues to enjoy a clear race pace advantage over the rest of the grid while Max Verstappen is looking to turn around a concerning start to the weekend ahead of qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix.<\/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=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>George Russell <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/motorsport\/formula-one\/mercedes-lock-out-front-row-for-shanghai-sprint-piastris-chance-for-crucial-points-live\/news-story\/d018e99e75d2b6c69bf9aaebf4327ea4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">won the sprint race earlier in the afternoon<\/a> to continue his early-season dominance, with Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finishing in second and third. <\/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>Australian Oscar Piastri, meanwhile, was in sixth with McLaren teammate Lando Norris finishing fourth.<\/p>\n<p>LIVE BLOG<\/p>\n<p>Follow all the latest updates from qualifying below! Can\u2019t see them? <a href=\"https:\/\/go.arena.im\/live\/fox-sports-australia\/cXK1aID?v=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Click here!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But one of the biggest headlines to come out of the sprint race was Verstappen\u2019s performance, with the former world champion dropping from eighth on the grid to 14th on the opening lap.<\/p>\n<p>He fought what was described as \u201cuncontrollable\u201d tyre degradation and finished ninth in the end.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have not a lot of words at the moment, to be honest,\u201d Verstappen told Sky Sports F1 after the sprint race. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything that could go wrong went wrong. The start 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlus some other bits on the car that were not, I would say, well prepared. We just need to get our stuff together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Absolute no no&#8217; Piastri has to relent | 04:04<\/p>\n<p>While Verstappen is the kind of driver that can pull off miraculous turnarounds, Jacques Villeneuve questioned whether this may be too tall a task for the Red Bull driver to manage this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, he\u2019s all over the place,\u201d Villeneuve said on Sky Sports F1. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has no feedback. He doesn\u2019t know, he just knows the car is undrivable. He doesn\u2019t know what to do with it, and he\u2019s frustrated. So he\u2019s not even in the right mental space.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes continues to enjoy a clear race pace advantage over the rest of the grid while Max Verstappen&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-539519","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\/539519","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=539519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}