Following a more challenging Friday Qualifying session with car issues, Charles Leclerc managed to turn his 2026 F1 Chinese GP Sprint Race into a positive podium finish, getting ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton.
The Monegasque had qualified in P6, set to begin his day behind the McLaren driver duo. Immediately at the beginning of the 19-lap contest, Leclerc was able to improve, reaching third place by Lap 2 while also taking advantage of Kimi Antonelli’s challenging start.
A promising F1 Sprint Race for Leclerc at the 2026 Chinese GP
Consequently, the Ferrari driver had a first row spot for the duel between Hamilton and Russell, up until the moment he decided to join the fight for the lead. On Lap 8 of 19, in fact, he passed his teammate at Turn 1, aiming at the elusive P1 spot.
Ultimately, Charles Leclerc’s quest for the Sprint Race Win of the F1 Chinese GP stopped in P2, as he ended his race 0.6s behind the Mercedes driver.
Nevertheless, he was rather content with his first Sprint race of the 2026 season, and especially with his ultimate close proximity to the championship leader.
“Yeah, I was managing quite a bit, but I’m pretty happy with the race. I think the pace was quite strong. We had a bit of fighting, which made me lose time maybe to George, and then it was difficult to catch up.
“But it’s good to see that at least our race pace is more similar to the Mercedes than our qualifying pace. And, yeah, pretty happy with the car today.”
Late race tyre grip woes
The majority of the top ten drivers, excluding the ones who had opted for harder tyres, took the opportunity during the Safety Car deployment for Hülkenberg’s technical issues to make a pit stop. Ferrari opted for a double stack.
In fact, Hamilton lost quite a bit of time as he ultimately exited behind Norris, whereas Leclerc suffered from wheelspin on cold tyres at the race restart as he almost spun out of the hairpin, losing distance to George Russell.
The eight-time Grand Prix winner recalled the moment, explaining that he had seen a small misjudgement in the Brit’s early restart and that he had wanted to take advantage of it.
“Well, I think the tyres were a little bit colder than what I expected. I saw George actually having a snap, and I was like, ‘OK, this is probably my opportunity to take the lead’. So I tried to go a bit more aggressive on throttle, but I had the same rear grip as George, so I nearly lost it.
“But luckily, yeah, I didn’t completely lose it. And then also the last corner was very poor grip.”
