F1 Results Today: Lewis Hamilton off the pace as Mercedes soar at Chinese Grand Prix

The one and only practice session for the Chinese Grand Prix saw more reliability issues for teams under the new 2026 F1 regulations.

At the head of the field though, George Russell and Kimi Antonelli dominated the timing sheets, with McLaren clearly the second fastest team behind Ferrari, whose impressive pace in Melbourne appears not to have made the flight to Shanghai.

Charles Leclerc managed to keep the papaya cars relatively honest (if not the Silver Arrows), but Lewis Hamilton could only set a lap time more than half a second back from his team-mate, and nearly a second and a half down on Russell, after a session which started off in sketchy style – getting close to Lando Norris and spinning out, flat-spotting his tyres.

Max Verstappen, meanwhile, could only go eighth fastest.

Williams could only get Carlos Sainz's car going in the final 25 minutes, citing 'data issues', but matters were even worse for Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad, who pulled up at the side of the track just 15 minutes in with smoke coming from his cockpit.

While the Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll had predictably limited running due to their team's own issues (see: car shaking itself apart), neither of them stopped on track at any point, and both set lap times. That, unequivocally, makes it the team's best session of the season apart from perhaps FP2 in Australia.

Also, Franco Colapinto stopped dead in the pitlane for about a minute for unclear reasons, before getting his car going again just before his crew of sprinting mechanics reached him. Which was funny.

F1 HEADLINES: Aston Martin short on parts as Alonso preps for Chinese GP nightmare

Chinese Grand Prix FP1 times

Is there F1 today?

Practice continues later today in Shanghai with sprint qualifying on Friday, March 13th at 15:30 (local time) and 7:30am (BST). To read the complete breakdown of sprint quali times and how to watch in select locations click here.

READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari go full ‘Macarena’ for F1 Chinese Grand Prix

Written by

Chris Deeley - Editor

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