George Russell takes pole position in the Chinese Sprint thanks to an "incredible" Mercedes

If there is no match between Mercedes Benz And as for the others at the start of this season, there's no debate about which of the German team's drivers is the strongest. Dominant in Australia, where he secured pole position by topping all three segments of the session before easily winning the race, George Russell has started in the same vein in China.

Already fastest in the first and only free practice session, the King's Lynn (Great Britain) native could see that the gap between the Mercedes and the rest of the field was even more impressive than in Melbourne. In this context, there was little doubt that the Sprint pole-sitter would have a three-pointed star emblazoned on his suit.

Sure enough, as expected, it was the Silver Arrows leader who fired first shot, hitting the bullseye. With a 0.289-second lead over Kimi Antonelli, George Russell secured his first pole position in sprint qualifying.

"The car was truly incredible."he smiled after greeting the large Chinese audience. “After Melbourne, where everything went well, today it was a real pleasure to drive this carThe feeling compared to last year is that the car is particularly fast. continues number 63, who qualified 5th in the Sprint in Shanghai last year before finishing 4th in the race. "Since Melbourne, we've worked hard to see what we can improve. Of course, in Australia it came down to a bit of luck, but we'll see how we do.""And tomorrow morning. Seven tenths, that's not so bad."

After relegating Isack Hadjar, the first non-Mercedes driver, to 0.785 seconds behind in qualifying in Melbourne, George Russell has now put 0.621 seconds on Lando Norris, the "best of the rest". A huge gap that speaks volumes about the superiority of Mercedes in these first races of the season.

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