George Russell takes dominant sprint pole for Mercedes

George Russell and Kimi Antonelli annihilated the opposition in the one and only practice session ahead of Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, suggesting Mercedes will be as dominant here in Shanghai as they were in Melbourne last weekend.

There is now no time for teams to refine their setups before the first competitive session of the weekend, qualifying for Saturday’s sprint race, which takes place at 7.30am UK time.

Russell pipped team-mate Antonelli by 0.120sec in cool, sunny conditions in Shanghai on Friday morning. But the championship leader was a massive 0.545sec clear of the first driver not in a Mercedes, McLaren’s Lando Norris.

McLaren’s Oscr Piastri and then Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc were next fastest, with Ferrari’s much-anticipated “Macarena” rear wing, which flips upside-down, not immediately flipping the script.

Lewis Hamilton was sixth fastest in the second Ferrari, 1.388sec off the pace, although the seven-time world champion did set his time earlier in the session on older tyres after an early spin wrecked his set of medium tyres.

Elsewhere, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was down in eighth place, a massive 1.8secs off the pace of Mercedes, and behind the Haas of Briton Oliver Bearman.

It remains to be seen whether anyone can challenge Mercedes this weekend, although the start to both the sprint race and Sunday’s main grand prix could offer opportunities.

Last week’s start in Melbourne was chaotic with some drivers depleting their battery reserves on their formation laps – Alpine’s Franco Colapinto narrowly avoided crashing into Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson as a result.

In the wake of safety fears voiced by drivers, the FIA allowed extra practice starts at the end of Friday’s FP1 session, although F1’s governing body stopped short of altering the formation lap recharge limit which had been highlighted as a problem by Russell.

On Thursday, Russell called Ferrari “selfish” for blocking the proposed change due to the fact they currently have the best start of any team.