Formula 1 2026 championship leader George Russell took victory in an entertaining sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix, after a prolonged scrap with former team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
What looked like it was eventually going to be a comfortable win for Russell looked to have been complicated by a late-race safety car for Nico Hulkenberg’s Audi, but Russell was never really troubled in the three-lap burst after the restart, maintaining his perfect record of scoring in 2026 so far.
Russell had kept the lead off the line in the original start, but the Mercedes 1-2 from qualifying was undone immediately. Team-mate Kimi Antonelli bogged down badly, with Hamilton right behind him managing to dart to the right to avoid him – and then still having enough momentum to pick off Lando Norris through the first sequence of corners.
He then pounced on Russell for the lead a handful of corners later, triggering another occurrence of ‘yo-yo racing’ for the lead also seen in Melbourne – with Russell twice blasting past on the back straight, only for Hamilton to use the saved-up energy to set up a move round the outside of Turn 1.
But on the fifth lap Hamilton had no response to Russell’s latest back-straight attack, and quickly dropped back. Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc, who had shadowed the lead battle for a couple of laps, reported that he saw Hamilton struggling and went past on lap eight – then was left displeased by Hamilton racing him too close through the opening sequence of corners the following tour, asking: “Does he know how wide these cars are?”.
With Russell breaking away, the Ferraris soon had to contend with Antonelli instead – the Mercedes man having been down to ninth but working his way back up. That, however, included an opening-lap barge into the side of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar – which left him saddled with a 10-second penalty.
By the time he had got up to second past Leclerc and Hamilton, a failure on the Audi of Hulkenberg brought out that safety car – causing a flurry of late-race pitstops, which gave Antonelli the chance to serve his penalty.
Ferrari needing to double-stack dropped Hamilton behind Norris into fourth, but Hamilton swiftly undid this on the back straight – following Russell and Leclerc home to complete the podium.
Antonelli was due to restart seventh and was also seemingly overtaken by Oscar Piastri before the start-finish line – but worked his way past midfielders and was then handed the position (now fifth place) back by Piastri in order for the McLaren man to avoid a penalty.
The final points-scoring places were taken by Liam Lawson and Ollie Bearman, whose teams both rolled the dice on keeping them out on the tyres they’d started the sprint on.
It nearly backfired as Max Verstappen, who had had an awful initial start with his Red Bull and was briefly down to 20th, came charging back up to them on fresh rubber, but Verstappen just ran out of time to pick off either.
Nineteen cars finished the race. Rookie Arvid Lindblad was called in before the safety car – his race compromised by an opening-lap spin – while Valtteri Bottas soon followed him in to retire.
Results
1 George Russell (Mercedes)
2 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.674s
3 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +2.554s
4 Lando Norris (McLaren) +4.433s
5 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +5.688s
6 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +6.809s
7 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +10.900s
8 Ollie Bearman (Haas) +11.271s
9 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +11.619s
10 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +13.887s
11 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +14.780s
12 Carlos Sainz (Williams) +15.753s
13 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) +15.858s
14 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +16.393s
15 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) +16.430s
16 Alex Albon (Williams) +20.014s
17 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +21.599s
18 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +21.971s
19 Sergio Perez (Cadillac) +28.241s
DNF Nico Hulkenberg (Audi)
DNF Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac)
DNF Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls)
