Chinese Grand Prix Race Report - 15/03/2026 - 1.7k
Note - This is later than I would’ve intended cause I didn’t watch this live. Plus it’s mother’s day in the UK, so happy mother’s day to any mum’s out there reading this.
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It’s official – China was chaos.
From sprint quali, to the finish line on Sunday, you couldn’t’ve had a more chaotic weekend than the thirteenth to the fifteenth of March, 2026.
To begin with, in the sprint we had three DNF’s; Nico Hulkenburg, Arvid Lindblad and Valterri Bottas separately. Lindblad and Bottas both went back to the pits mid-race, finishing in their garages, never bringing out a safety car. Hulkenburg though, spun, bringing out a safety car for many people to pit in the sprint race. Now generally, people do not pit in the middle of a sprint race, but considering the closeness of the speed at which both the Mercedes and Ferrari’s were running, a pit stop was a fair play from both teams.
The sprint then also had madness when it came to the running order throughout. A certain Mr Lando Norris, who started third, went backwards. Through pitting and Ferrari managing to bottle a double stack though, he ended up only one place back in the end in fourth, the only main highlight from his weekend. A similar thing happened with his teammate, the twenty-four-year-old from Melbourne only moving back 1 place overall in the sprint.
For the Mercedes and Ferrari’s though, the sprint let them flourish even more, widening the gap to the rest of the field. After a rocky start for Russell, where Lewis took the lead for a bit, very quickly, the older of the 2 silver arrows drivers took his spot back as King of the track. Overall, George Russell led the most of the nineteen sprint race laps, only getting a bit of a thrill at the start when he was fighting Lewis Hamilton for the top spot in the race.
This race is one that Hamilton has won before, the sprint being won by the brit last year, currently his only win in red. Russell on the other hand, has never won a sprint race until yesterday. Yes, spoiler alert, George Russell won the sprint, but only by about two tenths of a second, Hamilton coming in in a close second, nearly missing out on the podium though because of Ferrari bottling their pit strategy. By having the cars double stack in this sprint race, they Ferrari mechanics actually put the cars through more slowly, allowing the papaya car of Lando Norris to slip through. Luckily, of course, Hamilton did manage to climb his way back up the field to the podium position in this sprint.
To tell you the rest of the point positions, Charles Leclerc came in third, Lando Norris in fourth, Kimi Antonelli in fifth, Oscar Piastri in sixth, Liam Lawson in seventh and finally Ollie Bearman in eighth.
To finally get onto the race, we need to start with qualifying, where, to just tell you the headlines, Andrea Kimi Antonelli made history, being the youngest polesitter ever in Formula One. The young man from Bolonga, yes, can no longer be the youngest race winner, that title still being grasped onto by the Dutch driving machine of Max Verstappen, but he took the title of youngest polesitter. He took this title with quite a margin might I add, over two tenths faster than his teammate, George Russell. He also managed to bounce back from a penalty in the sprint, a 10 second one to be exact. Antonelli did end up serving this when he stopped for his pit stop, the Mercedes team successfully double stacking, unlike the prancing horses 2 garages down.
So, now we reach Sunday’s race, lights going out at a time in which I couldn’t be bothered to get up for. When I did get round to watching the race though, at a much more sensible hour, chaos had already been unleashed into the paddock. Before the race even started, we already had four people not racing; both McLaren’s, Alex Albon and Gabriele Bortoleto.
This is now the second weekend in a row where Piastri hasn’t even started the race, the man from Melbourne being wheeled off of the grid just before the formation lap started for the race. Last week, at Piastri’s home race, he ended up in the wall even before he got to the grid, never starting the race. A disappointing two weeks for his side of the garage. His teammate on the other hand, never even made it out the garage, the papaya team hopefully going to get him started up and off for a pit lane start for the race. Norris then ended up out of the car like his Aussie friend, both cars suffering from a technical issue
Those issues weren’t just solely affecting the McLaren team though – Williams and Audi already were experiencing issues before the race started with their own cars. Alex Albon, who’d suffered technical issues anyway throughout the weekend, was starting in the pit lane. Because of technical issues unknown to me though, he ended up out of the car and back in the garage, signalling to everyone in the stands that he wouldn’t be starting in the grand prix. Bortoleto was in a similar condition to Albon, except he was actually meant to be starting on the grid, never getting out of his side of the garage.
When the race did actually start, even more chaos ensued as Lewis Hamilton miraculously went around the outside of the two Mercedes, overtaking both cars and leading the first lap of the race. Through the fact that Brixworth has created a rocket ship for the German outfitter though, both of the silver arrows drivers managed to take their positions back from Hamilton.
With things looking steady though, the race had to descend into madness, with Hadjar spinning, Bearman having to drive around him, and then Lance Stroll causing a safety car. With this safety car, a large percentage of the rest of the field decides to pit for new tyres, to try and get them through the rest of the race. Last year, the Shanghai International Circuit’s tarmac wore down tyres impeccably fact, with the track doing a similar thing this year. Since the hard tyres weren’t wearing down as fast though, the people with the Pirelli compound deciding to not come in to pit.
With this strategy decision being made for many of the teams, drivers such as Esteban Ocon and Franco Colapinto were left out, the latter of the two drivers ending up in second as Kimi Antonelli managed to hold his position in first, even with a pit stop.
Speaking of the young Italian, once he managed to get past Hamilton, he had been left unbothered for the rest of the race, never really having to fight another driver until he started to lap a few cars in the last ten to fifteen laps.
Onto the topic of Max Verstappen, while Antonelli and Russell were getting annoyed at the Cadillac’s, the Dutchman started to suffer from technical issues. I rewatched the clip when Verstappen did lose power, and it seemed as if he changed gear/braked but couldn’t get it back up again. Of course, this then brought forth the fact that these new technical regulations are really messing with the sport. Three out of the seven drivers that never finished today all have world championships, with Fernando Alonso going back to the garage a few laps before Max. It’s a ridiculous statement to make, but shows just how bad the regulations actually are for this year.
As the chequered flag drew near, Kimi Antonelli did nearly not finish himself, oversteer taking hold and nearly sending him off and into the gravel. He managed to retake control though, and pushing past his mistakes, he drove the last few laps to see the best thing a leading driver could see – the chequered flag. His teammate, Russell followed a few seconds later and then Hamilton a few seconds after that, taking his first podium for the prancing horses. Mercedes, taking yet another 1-2 allowed them to max out on points for the grand prix, even with the penalty's mishap from yesterday.
The rest of the top ten are as follows; Charles Leclerc in fourth, Ollie Bearman in fifth, Pierre Gasly in sixth, Liam Lawson in seventh, Isack Hadjar in eighth, Carlos Sainz in ninth, and finally Franco Colapinto in tenth. This is Lawson, Hadjar, Sainz and Colapinto’s first points of the year, with Hadjar also crossing the finish line for the first time this year in China. It is also Franco Colapinto’s first points in the Alpine car, with him scoring no points at all last year.
These points earned by each of the drivers, of course contribute to both the driver’s and constructor’s championships. Your top ten in the driver’s championship are:
- George Russell – 51 points
- Kimi Antonelli – 47 points
- Charles Leclerc – 34 points
- Lewis Hamilton – 33 points
- Ollie Bearman – 17 points
- Lando Norris – 15 points
- Pierre Gasly – 9 points
- Max Verstappen – 8 points
- Liam Lawson – 8 points
- Arvid Lindblad – 4 points
Of course, now with the constructors, Mercedes and Ferrari obviously are topping the standings, Ferrari sitting thirty-one points behind the German outfitter on 67 points (please don’t make the joke, make 87 instead). Mercedes, if you do the maths, have earned 98 points so far this season. The rest of the championship is in the following order:
- McLaren – 18 points
- Haas – 17 points
- Red Bull – 12 points
- Racing Bulls – 12 points
- Alpine – 10 points
- Audi – 2 points
- Williams – 2 points
- Cadillac – A very respectable 0 points (Both Checo and Bottas finished and they’re new, it’s respectable)
- Aston Martin – 0 points (something not very respectable)
We must now recognise that even as we go into a non-race week before the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka, that both the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian grand prix have been cancelled. It is horrific to think about the acts of war that are being committed currently in the middle east – no one should have been put in this position. It is corrupt leaders that have led us to this point where there will be no Formula One in the month of April. Over that period, I will try to put out some ‘beginner’s guide to F1’ posts to guide any new fans that happen to find me (thanks for reading btw) and fill the time there.
For now, let’s just ship the trophies to Brackley and hope not too much drama goes on in the F1 world this week.
any reblogs would be amazing at this point and it helps push my writing forward in this space, thanks!