The Chinese GP marks the first F1 Sprint weekend of this season. The current Constructors’ Champions, McLaren, set solid times during the first F1 Sprint Qualifying in 2026.
Lando Norris will be starting P3 behind polesitter George Russell on Saturday. Teammate Oscar Piastri set the fifth-fastest time at the Shanghai International Circuit.
It is the team’s first top-3 finish in any session this year. Talking to F1TV, the Briton and the Aussie — who wasn’t able to start his home race — reflected on their performance, looking ahead to the Sprint race on Saturday.
Norris satisfied to beat the Ferrari Duo ahead of the F1 Sprint Race
Current World champion Lando Norris ended up +0.621s away from Mercedes’ Russell, finishing the third round of F1 sprint qualifying with just a single lap. To his surprise, he managed to out-qualify both the Ferrari drivers, being just two hundredths of a second faster than Hamilton.
“Yeah, I’m just happy with the result. I’ve not seen what I lost in gain and whatever, but no, P3 is as good as we can do it for the time being,” Norris shared.
“I’m actually pretty happy to beat both the Ferraris today because they seem pretty good the whole day, you know, so I’m satisfied. Good position for tomorrow.”
Shanghai International Circuit is a favoured track for Sprint races. It’s lack of multiple long straights are very attractive for the new cars, as the track provides the right amount of action without killing energy easily.
“Certainly things have been better this weekend just because the track’s a lot more simple from that side of things, from a power unit side of things, so everyone kind of falls in line a bit more.
“But we certainly seemed to get a good amount out of it at the end and it was close, so a good lap put me in a good position.”
Norris on the opportunity to fight Mercedes ahead of the Chinese GP Sprint
Mercedes has been dominating the track so far, with Russell and Antonelli continuously finishing in the top 3. This power dynamic is very familiar to Norris, as last year it was he and Piastri dominating on track. As McLaren has been showing good starts recently, Norris was pushed to share his thoughts regarding their new progress ahead of the Chinese GP.
“I mean, I don’t expect them to get bad starts to be honest. They’ve always, for years, they’ve been one of the best starters. It’s an opportunity for sure. I think they know what they did wrong last weekend in Melbourne,” he explained.
“And they’ll probably be fine tomorrow, but you never know. It’s a good opportunity. It’s the easiest place to ever take us off the line, so we’ll see what we can do.”
Piastri on the impact of the tyre-compound switch in SQ3 and the gap to Mercedes
While the first two segments of Sprint Qualifying are run on mediums, the teams need to switch to softs for SQ3.
“It was reasonable. I think the step in grip from the medium to the soft was pretty big,” Piastri said.
Piastri had finished the Sprint Qualifying at Shanghai International Circuit with a gap of +0.704s to Russell. However, out of all teams Mercedes seems to have mastered the regulations change the best. The gap between Kimi Antonelli and Piastri was slightly more than four tenths of a second.
“But yeah, obviously the gap to Mercedes-Benz is pretty impressive, so some things for us to try and work on. But I think the car felt pretty good. It was a pretty decent lap. So yeah, I don’t think there was too much left.”
Pushed on further ideas regarding the problematic gap ahead of the Sprint race at the 2026 F1 Chinese GP, Piastri explained that the team will have to reevaluate today’s data.
“No, I think sector one, we seemed good, obviously, but yeah, six tenths in the last sector is impressive, so we’ll go and have a look at where we’re losing the time.”
Overall, the McLaren duo seemed satisfied with the qualifying results, confidently looking ahead to the first Sprint of the 2026 F1 season.
