F1 Sprint Qualifying Results: Max Verstappen suffers Shanghai nightmare as Mercedes shine

George Russell and Kimi Antonelli locked out the front row of the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race on Friday, continuing their early dominance of the F1 season.

The pair will be followed by Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton on the second row, but the reigning world champion could be bumped up to second if the stewards decide that Antonelli should be penalised for a possible impeding incident – ironically, on Norris – earlier in the session.

Update, 9:40am: Stewards decided no further action should be taken against Antonelli

Ferrari's pace, with Hamilton splitting the McLarens and just three and a half tenths behind Antonelli, was markedly improved from practice earlier in the day. Interestingly, that coincided with the shelving of the team's experimental 'Macarena' read wing system, which was removed from the Scuderia's cars between sessions, ostensibly for reliability issues rather than performance.

Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar, on the other hand, had an absolutely horrible time, barely making it through SQ2 by less than a tenth of a second before qualifying eighth and tenth respectively – with Verstappen one and three quarter seconds behind Russell's pole time.

Earlier in the session, both Cadillacs and both Aston Martins were eliminated in the bottom four places as expected, with Sergio Perez not even making it onto the track, but it is the Williams pair of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz who will be joining them sitting in the garage for the rest of the session, with their overweight car unable to make SQ2.

Cadillac confirmed at the start of the session that Perez wouldn't take part due to a fuel system issue, which had also kept him in the garage at the end of the earlier practice session.

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Changes to F1 qualifying in 2026

There are a couple of changes to the way qualifying works this year, not quite as sweeping as the new technical regulations.

Firstly we now have 22 cars on the grid, so instead of 5 cars exiting after SQ1 and SQ2, we will have 6 being eliminated. That still leaves 10 for the pole shootout in SQ3.

Unlike in grand prix qualifying, where Q3 now gets an extra minute and lasts for 13 rather than 12, sprint qualifying timings are unchanged (12 minutes for SQ1, 10 for SQ2, eight for SQ3)

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Chris Deeley - Editor

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