George Russell claimed his first Formula One sprint race win at the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix, maintaining his perfect start to the season after a closely fought contest that highlighted both Mercedes’ strengths and the evolving competitive order under the 2026 regulations.
I think he was underfueled as they kept asking him to do Lico. Probably a dozen times in the last 10 laps they reminded him about licoSoulPancake13 wrote: ↑08 Mar 2026, 07:31I have to say, I believe LEC was nursing an issue after the 3rd VSC. He was nowhere pace wise.
He probably used too much fuel in the first part of the race with Russell.ScuderiaLeo wrote: ↑08 Mar 2026, 07:49
I think he was underfueled as they kept asking him to do Lico. Probably a dozen times in the last 10 laps they reminded him about lico
.. ferrari might be able to beat them in some track? maybe hungaroring? tough time ahead i just wish team remain united and the ferrari board don't make stupid mistake by firing fred charles or lewis or the technical team thats my only concernMaybe it was a distraction to what they're actually doing. Not saying they're cheating but something in that car is very well engineered.Fakepivot wrote: ↑08 Mar 2026, 07:50why is everyone here think its compression trick, i don't think thats what they are doing since they are confident the new testing introduction in june is not going to effect them.. they probably have something else going.. we need to just accept that this is merc year
Ferrari might be a little stronger in China relative to Merc due to harder braking zones but I'd still expect Russell on the top spot. Perhaps Lewis can finally step on the podium.Jdn1327 wrote: ↑08 Mar 2026, 07:52Let's not forget that Australia is a but of an outlier in terms of performance. Maybe China will be better suited to ferrari. Race pace was good though. Regardless they are not that far away from merc. I forsee reliability playing a part in more races this year however.
There were a few drivers who were not able to use overtake mode today. I think FIA had a screw up with their systemsSoulPancake13 wrote: ↑08 Mar 2026, 08:02LEC's overtake wasn't working in traffic, causing him to get stuck and ruin his tyres.
Ferrari CEO Vigna: "I'm happy for the team here and in Maranello, we can't be satisfied with a 3rd/4th place but we have the data, we continue to work"
Vasseur: "There's a gap with Mercedes, 0.5 seconds or similar. We have a list of things to do"
Lewis Hamilton: "I'm generally really proud of the team. I think we've done an amazing job to get the car to where it is. Of course, we're not as fast as Mercedes, we've got work to do, but we're right in the fight and it was a really, really fun race and it felt good for me also. A couple more laps and I would have had Charles, so I had great pace-lots and lots of positives to take from today."
Charles: "Was the win within reach? I don't know, I wasn't thinking about it too much because there are so many things to think about in the car now that it's a bit complicated to project ahead during the race, but I was taking the situation lap by lap as it was, we had a good start, we had a good battle, it was ultra intense because with all those clippings it's tricky to anticipate, I was happy to have held onto P1 during the first stint, then there was the VSC, Mercedes wanted to do something different and it paid off for them, I think they were a bit faster anyway, the good thing is that I don't feel like I saw the gap there was yesterday in qualifying, so we seem to be better in the race, but there's still a fair bit of work to catch them.
And also to be fair that gap was exaggerated a lot because the Mercs stopped under the VSC and Ferrari didn't. So maybe at the end the gap would've been more like 5 or 6 seconds.
