Mercedes dominates sole Chinese GP practice

George Russell and Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli established a comfortable margin over the field in the sole practice session for the Chinese Grand Prix.

Russell led the entire session, including early on the medium tires before switching to the softs for an indicative qualifying run. The Briton, winner in Australia last week, set the benchmark at 1m32.741s, though he was the only front-running driver to get a clean first lap on the soft tire.

Antonelli, though, had several chances to best the sister car. He would have led during the medium-tire running had it not been for a badly timed virtual safety car ending his lap, and a slow final sector kept him a step behind Russell once he bolted on the red-marked rubber. A second attempt on used softs eventually closed the gap to 0.12s with a purple first sector, hinting at even more pace to come from the Italian if he can string together a clean lap.

Lando Norris was third fastest, the McLaren driver lapping 0.555s off the pace with a last-gasp second flying lap on softs, pipping his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by 0.176s.

Both McLaren drivers improved with their second laps on softs, though Piastri experimented with a second preparation lap, which appeared to give him a boost for his first attempt.

Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton followed, the Monegasque leading the way 0.858s off the Mercedes pace.

Hamilton followed but was 0.53s further back after a disrupted session. The Briton had an odd run-in with Norris – he appeared to pinch him onto the apex at the final corner, costing himself some floor damage, for which the stewards deemed no action was necessary – and then had a bizarre lock-up into the Turn 6 hairpin, flat-spotting all four medium tires. That lock-up meant he had to switch early to softs, setting his most representative time after six laps on the compound.

Oliver Bearman – who spun late in the session, apparently while distracted by traffic behind him – was the seventh, 1.685s off the pace but 0.115s ahead of Max Verstappen, who had a quiet session on his way to eighth.

Nico Hulkenberg was 1.898s off the pace for Audi, and Pierre Gasly completed the top 10 for Alpine at 1.935s adrift, the last driver within 2s of the leader.

Liam Lawson was 11th ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto, Isack Hadjar and Esteban Ocon.

Franco Colapinto was 15th for Alpine. The Argentine spun on track early and later had his car shut down as he entered pit lane before being able to restart the engine and continue without further trouble.

Alex Albon was 16th ahead of Williams teammate Carlos Sainz, who lost almost 40 minutes of the session to a data problem that kept him in his garage.

Fernando Alonso followed in 18th ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll.

Arvid Lindblad was 21st in the order after parking his Racing Bulls car just past the hairpin at the end of the back straight around 14 minutes into the session. It was a particularly costly stoppage for the Briton, who has never raced in Shanghai before.

Sergio Perez completed the order for Cadillac, 6.459s off the pace but without having used the soft tire in a session comprising just 13 laps.

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