2026 Chinese Grand Prix Preview

After an action-packed Australian Grand Prix opened up the new era of Formula One, this weekend F1 circus head to the Shanghai International Circuit for the 19th Chinese Grand Prix.

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What happened last time out?

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George Russell took pole position in Melbourne ahead of his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli, and those two would convert it to a 1-2 finish on Sunday. It wasn’t without immense pressure from the Ferraris, in particular Charles Leclerc, who swapped with Russell for the lead seven different times during the opening nine laps of the race.

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Home hero Oscar Piastri crashed out on the lap to the grid before the race. He suffered battery issues in the pit lane, which led to a sudden loss of throttle power. This sent him onto the kerb and into the opposite wall.

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World Champion Lando Norris could only manage fifth, just holding off last year’s runner-up and four-time champion, Max Verstappen, who made a stunning drive from 20th to 6th.

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Arvid Lindblad was also in the points on his F1 debut, finishing eighth in the Racing Bulls.

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What happened last year in China?

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2025 was a sprint-format in Shanghai, and it was Lewis Hamilton who had the best start to the weekend, taking pole in Sprint Qualifying before converting it to his first P1 finish for the Scuderia in the Sprint Race.

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Qualifying for Sunday’s Race was a different story as Hamilton could only manage P5; this time, it was Piastri who took his first-ever pole position, ahead of Russell by less than a tenth of a second. Norris qualified third, less than 0.060 seconds behind the Silver Arrow.

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In the race, Russell got a brilliant launch, which allowed him to get alongside the polesitter Piastri, but he was on the inside, and the much dirtier line, so Norris was able to sweep around the outside into second place.

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It would stay like that between the two Brits until the pit-stop when the Mercedes undercut the McLaren, though Norris would regain the position just a couple of laps later on the back straight.

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Piastri would remain untroubled and take his first victory of the 2025 season ahead of Norris and Russell.

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After the race, both Ferraris of Leclerc and Hamilton were disqualified alongside Alpine’s Pierre Gasly. Gasly and Leclerc were found to have underweight cars, while Hamilton’s skid block was too worn.

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Sprint Weekend Format

Friday - FP1

Friday - Sprint Qualifying

Saturday - Sprint Race

Saturday - Grand Prix Qualifying

Sunday - Grand Prix Race

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Sprint Format in 2026

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Despite the two cars, the 100km race on Saturday remains unchanged. The big change comes to the qualifying duration of Sprint Qualifying, which is trying to to address both tyre and engine concerns.

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SQ1 is 12 minutes

SQ2 is 10 minutes

SQ3 is eight minutes

Points system for F1 Sprint

1st place - 8 points

2nd place - 7 points

3rd place - 6 points

4th place - 5 points

5th place - 4 points

6th place - 3 points

7th place - 2 points

8th place - 1 point

Stats

First Grand Prix – 2004

Track Length – 5.451km

Lap record – 1m 32.238s, Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, 2004

Most pole positions – Lewis Hamilton (6)

Most wins – Lewis Hamilton (6)

Overtakes in 2025 - 90

Last Five Chinese Grand Prix Polesitters

2025 – Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

2024 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

2019 – Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)

2018 – Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)

2017 – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

Last Five Chinese Grand Prix Winners

2025 – Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

2024 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

2019 – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

2018 – Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull)

2017 – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

What the Drivers had to say

George Russell

“Charles gave me a proper fight in Melbourne, and he was ahead of me for the VSC.

“If he pitted under the VSC, I don't think we would have finished 1-2. Maybe I could have got past him for the win, but it would have been a proper tussle.

"We were quicker than we expected in Qualifying; I think other people didn't expect us to be that quick, but the pace on Sunday, we were nip and tuck with Ferrari, which is more in line with what we expected.

I think, from what we saw in Melbourne, at this early stage of the season, I expect Ferrari to be our closest competitors.

"But Max [Verstappen] was very quick, he came from the back, and you can be confident he would have qualified probably in the top three.

"The championship is won over a long season. This start is good because the car is performing well, but other than that, it doesn't mean much more.

"We have to keep pushing, Ferrari are very close behind, we saw it in the race, they were super fast. McLaren still has no major updates from winter testing, and we think they are overweight currently.

"I'm sure when McLaren brings an update, the development will be very quick, so we take nothing for granted."

Lando Norris

‘It’s been a busy week for the whole team, both the team that are here travelling but also the team back in MTC [McLaren Technology Centre], trying to step it up as much as possible.

"[A busy week] full of learning, [we found] some good things, some not so good things, but all things that we need to [and] we want to improve on, learn what we could from others, learn what we could from ourselves, and do a much better job all-round here in Shanghai.

“It is the understanding of the power unit, we have not done as good a job as we should have done, so our own understanding is not to the level we want it to be at, and the team has worked very hard to improve that," said Norris.

"But I also said, the chassis is not to the level that we want it to be at. It’s certainly not bad, and we’re certainly not miles away. I think we are not as far as it almost looked in Melbourne.

"We need to improve it more, but we know that, we know where we’re stronger, we know where we’re weaker.

"Our tyre management was pretty tricky last weekend in Melbourne and might be quite tricky again here with the graining.

"We kind of need to improve a little bit of everything; it was not just one thing or the other.

"Both our car and our understanding of the power unit need to improve, and the team has done a lot of work on that to try and do better this weekend."

Max Verstappen

The Dutchman revealed he had engaged in talks with the FIA and Formula One in order to make improvements to the current rules. Verstappen was very critical, like many other drivers, of the new rules last weekend in Australia. However, he admitted that he would like to continue going into the sport despite not enjoying this generation of cars.

“I don't want to leave, really.

“I wish I had a bit more fun, for sure, but I'm also doing other stuff that is a lot of fun. I get to race the Nordschleife. I hope in the coming years I get to do Spa [24 Hours], hopefully Le Mans.

“At the same time, it's a bit conflicting because I don't really enjoy driving the car, but I do enjoy working with all the people in the team and from the engine department as well.

“I don't want to leave, so I also hope, of course, it gets better. I've had discussions with F1 and the FIA, and we are working towards something, and hopefully that will improve everything. I definitely hope not [that it's the same] for the next few years. I hope that next year we can make a decent improvement.”

Speaking on the pace of the Red Bull, Verstappen doesn’t believe they are near the top teams just yet.

“I think if I had started, let's say, a little bit up front, I think the best that I could have done was one spot higher because we didn't have the pace of the top four cars.

“We also had a lot of degradation and graining, so we will see what happens in the coming races, and if we can close that gap a little bit.”