Russell surprised to see McLaren struggling in SQ3 in China

While Lewis Hamilton signed his first pole position with Ferrari In the Sprint Qualifying session of the Chinese Grand Prix, his former teammate George Russell placed the best Mercedes in fifth place. As in Australia, the Silver Arrows seem to be experiencing some difficulty getting their tires up to speed this weekend.

« It was difficult to fully exploit the tires in Sprint Qualifying; at one point in SQ2 we were outside the top 10, then second, even though the two laps looked similar, says Russell. It shows how small the gaps were today, but I think fifth place is probably a good result. I was pretty happy with my lap in SQ5 and it's a good starting point. It's always difficult to get through Sprint Qualifying with so few laps in just one hour of practice, so we can be pleased with our effort."

"Let's see what happens tomorrow in the Sprint and in qualifying, adds the Briton. It was a surprise to see the McLaren We're struggling a bit more in SQ3, and we have four different teams in the top five. We definitely have the opportunity to move up in the Sprint and compete with the cars in front of us, so hopefully we can do that. »

« In SQ3 we chose to start early, following McLaren out of the pits, analyses Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' director of engineering. George set a decent lap, but never felt like he had the grip on the soft tyres to challenge for pole. Kimi lacked grip in the first sector, and his slides in the tricky early sectors cost him dearly over the rest of the lap. The positive is that he's still in contention from 7th place and his move into the third segment of qualifying allows him to continue his learning curve. In hindsight, we would have started at the end, as the track seemed to improve slightly, but it seems like the others are getting a bit more out of the new soft tyres. We have a bit of time to figure that out before tomorrow's main qualifying. »

George Russell's teammate, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, will start from seventh place on the grid for the Sprint this Saturday, which will start at 4:00 a.m. (French time).

ALSO READ > The starting grid for the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix Sprint