George Russell secured, this Friday (13), the pole position for the first sprint race of the 2026 Formula 1 season, at the Shanghai International Circuit. It is the first sprint pole position in the career of the Mercedes Briton, who stated he is aware of the unpredictable situations that the first race of the Chinese GP may present:
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“I am happy that we secured pole position for tomorrow’s Sprint race, the first Sprint pole of my career. The W17 has been behaving very well all day, and we managed to extract the maximum from the car in today’s qualifying session. When the wind picked up in SQ3, we started to lose a bit of speed on the straights, just like other drivers, but we still managed to put all the sectors together and secure a front row for tomorrow’s race,” said Russell.
“Despite our pace, we are aware of the threat posed by the others. We also know that anything can happen during a Sprint race, especially at the start. We have been working hard with the team on our starts and learned a lot from Melbourne,” he reaffirmed. “We will also need to focus on tire management, as we always see quite a bit of graining on this track.”
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Russell also said that the team will continue working through the night to prepare not only for the sprint, but also for the qualifying for the main race: “We will continue working through the night to ensure a good Sprint race tomorrow, but also a successful qualifying session for Sunday’s Grand Prix.”
The sprint race in Shanghai is scheduled for 00:00. F1MANIA.NET follows the entire stage in real time.
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