George Russell took pole for the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix to continue Mercedes\u2019 dominant start to the new era of Formula 1 on Friday.<\/p>\n
Russell is the driver to beat in Shanghai after his dominant win in Australia last week. With teammate Kimi Antonelli qualifying second and no other team close, Mercedes is on target for another 1-2 finish in Saturday\u2019s sprint, which is followed by qualifying for Sunday\u2019s Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Lando Norris was 0.621 of a second adrift, a vast gap in F1 terms, in third for McLaren. Only Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari in fourth and Norris\u2019 teammate Oscar Piastri in fifth got within a second of Russell\u2019s time.<\/p>\n
Verstappen, the most prominent critic of the new cars, had another tough qualifying session in eighth, though not as bad as the crash which left him at the back of the grid in Australia last week.<\/p>\n
Ferrari debuts \u2018Macarena\u2019<\/p>\n
Russell and Mercedes led the way in Friday\u2019s sole practice session, as Ferrari failed to find a significant advantage from its unique rear wing which rotates upside-down for more speed on the straights.<\/p>\n
Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc had the fifth quickest time (1:33.599) followed by Lewis Hamilton (1:34.129).<\/p>\n
Hamilton touched tires with Norris in practice and also spun as he lost control on another lap.<\/p>\n
Dubbed the \u201cflip-flop\u201d or \u201cMacarena,\u201d it was used briefly in testing, dropped for Australia, and is the sort of innovation which could help Leclerc and Hamilton take the fight to Mercedes. It could also disrupt the airflow and hinder cars following close behind.<\/p>\n
Changes on the way<\/p>\n
F1\u2019s governing body, the FIA, could take stock of how the racing is going and make changes, potentially even in time for the Japanese Grand Prix later this month.<\/p>\n
One gripe so far has been the lack of control by drivers of when the electrical power kicks in and how much is used.<\/p>\n
They can\u2019t stop the power being deployed in typical straight-line driving and can only add an extra boost, which in Australia meant cars finishing the formation lap with an empty battery and lacking pace at the start. That\u2019s \u201cnot a lot of fun and also quite dangerous,\u201d Verstappen said Thursday.<\/p>\n
A related issue ended home hero Oscar Piastri\u2019s race before it began in Australia, when the extra power kicked in unexpectedly and tipped him into the barriers before he even reached the grid.<\/p>\n
If F1 can\u2019t race next month in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which remain on the schedule for now despite the Iran war, it would leave a five-week gap in the calendar, which teams could use to refine any changes.<\/p>\n
Zhou a boost for Cadillac<\/p>\n
There hasn\u2019t been a Chinese driver on the grid since Zhou Guanyu left Sauber at the end of 2024, but he\u2019s still a big celebrity in his home country. As reserve driver for Cadillac, he could give the new team extra recognition in a key market after its solid but unspectacular debut in Australia.<\/p>\n
It was a tough day for Cadillac as Valtteri Bottas was 21st and last in sprint qualifying, slower than even the unreliable Aston Martins, while Sergio Perez couldn\u2019t start because of a problem with his fuel system.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell took pole for the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix to continue Mercedes\u2019 dominant start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-533730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}