Author Archives: PressBox

Formula 1 has moved to cancel its April Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, cutting the planned 24-race season to 22 events. Multiple outlets said the Bahrain round (mid-April) and the Jeddah race (the following week) were set to be left off the calendar; F1 and the FIA had been coordinating with the Bahrain and Jeddah promoters but declined public comment as decisions were being finalized. Reports linked the cancellations to recent strikes and reprisals in the Gulf, and organizers were expected to confirm the removals imminently.

The removals create a significant gap in the early season, with reports varying on whether there will be a four- or five-week break between the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka (late March) and the Miami round (early May). Freight and equipment movements were disrupted: freight due to leave Japan would be diverted to Miami; sea-freight garage equipment and tire-test kits were reported to remain in Sakhir; crates were stuck in Jeddah; and F2 and F3 freight was said to be in Melbourne. Those issues complicate parts movement and support-series planning.

Teams would gain roughly an extra month at their bases for development and simulator work, but many upgrade programs would be delayed and a mandated compression-ratio test is now expected to fall after five races instead of seven. Audi team principal Jonathan Wheatley described the situation as an operational “bump in the road.” FIA president Mohammed ben Sulayem said safety and well-being would guide decisions and expressed sympathy for those affected by the conflict. Organizers explored short-notice replacement venues including Portimão, Imola and Istanbul and considered running two races at the same circuit, but judged substitutes unlikely because promoters would probably not pay hosting fees and freight timing made logistics impractical; Imola was also unavailable for one of the April dates because the World Endurance Championship had moved its Qatar weekend there. Several outlets said F1 and the FIA planned to leave the Bahrain and Saudi rounds out of the calendar rather than seek substitutes, keeping the championship at 22 events and producing a condensed, operationally challenging early season for teams and organizers.

Max Verstappen publicly blasted Red Bull’s RB22 as “undriveable” and a “disaster” after a troubled Friday at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, saying “we never had anything this bad,” that the car was “horrendous” and suffered from “no grip, no balance.” He quipped he was “practicing with Mario Kart,” warned he was losing “massive amounts of time in the corners,” and said the new power-unit changes left him “conflicted” about his future. Verstappen ultimately qualified eighth for the sprint, about 1.7–1.8 seconds off George Russell’s sprint pole, and described driveability problems that compounded through the day.

The on-track data and session details underscored those complaints: Verstappen slid from 11th in SQ1 to eighth in SQ3 as his deficit to Russell widened from around 1.140s in SQ1 to about 1.734s in the final shootout, and he had an off at the last corner during SQ2. Rookie teammate Isack Hadjar scraped into SQ3 and qualified 10th, roughly half a second behind Verstappen after a compromised SQ3 lap blamed on a battery deployment issue. Mercedes produced a dominant sprint qualifying performance, leaving Red Bull unusually exposed under the new 2026 regulations.

Technical analysis and team reaction amplified the concern. Sky Sports’ Anthony Davidson flagged a clear “torque spike” on onboard audio that preceded an oversteer moment and warned the unpredictable power delivery forced Verstappen to drive defensively; commentators judged the faults to be fundamental and unlikely to have “quick fixes.” Red Bull’s Laurent Mekies was heard apologizing on the radio (“Sorry, Max”) and said there was “a lot to learn,” pointing to the new power unit and race-trim energy management as key areas to understand. The team has acknowledged it has fallen further off the pace of Mercedes, Helmut Marko cautioned that Verstappen would not win the 2026 title even as Red Bull begins racing its own power unit, and engineers face a difficult puzzle to close the gap before the Sprint and the race.

An unexplained Ferrari power-unit deployment problem cost Charles Leclerc straight-line speed and effectively ruined his Sprint qualifying in Shanghai, leaving him sixth on the Sprint grid. Leclerc radioed the team during SQ3 — “This deployment, my god,” and “What the hell is happening?” — and said he lost “around four tenths” on the back straight and “about half a second” on his second SQ3 lap.

Team figures varied slightly on the magnitude of the loss — Frédéric Vasseur said Leclerc “lost something like three tenths in the last straight line” — but the net result was a heavily compromised one-lap time: Leclerc was more than three tenths down on Lewis Hamilton and roughly a second adrift of George Russell, who set the SQ3 benchmark.

Ferrari acknowledged the deployment issue and said it would analyze the data to determine whether the problem could be resolved or managed for the Sprint and the main race. The car’s situation in Shanghai highlighted a contrast between strong cornering and weak straight-line punch: Ferrari had briefly trialed a distinctive “Macarena” rear wing in FP1 before withdrawing it, a change that reportedly improved corner performance but exacerbated the deficit on the straights. Mercedes’ qualifying edge was clear — Hamilton and Russell topped the timesheets and rivals warned Ferrari must urgently close the power shortfall — yet Leclerc and the team said they remained confident they could be relatively stronger in race trim and hoped to recover during the races.

FIA stewards opened post-session investigations into alleged impeding by Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly during Sprint qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix, actions that could carry three-place grid drops and threaten to undo Mercedes’ provisional front-row lockout. The summonses mean the Sprint starting order set in qualifying is provisional and could be reshuffled before Saturday’s Sprint race, with the stewards’ decision likely to have direct consequences for the top five.

Officials were told Antonelli appeared to impede Lando Norris late in SQ2, with Norris saying on the radio he “was going to push that lap” after backing out when Antonelli was reportedly slow on the inside into Turn 1, while Max Verstappen accused Gasly of impeding him after Turn 14 and forcing him wide on his final push. Both drivers were called before the stewards; the FIA said it would probe the drivers’ actions themselves rather than simply the resulting track positions. Despite the alleged incidents, Norris and Verstappen both progressed to SQ3.

Provisional results see George Russell on Sprint pole after a 1:31.520 lap with teammate Antonelli second, giving Mercedes a provisional 1-2. If Antonelli is penalized three places he would drop down the order — one widely reported scenario would see him fall to fifth, promote Norris onto the front row and bump Verstappen up from P8 — producing a significant reshuffle of the Sprint grid. The session also underlined wider issues in the field: Sergio Pérez missed the session with a fuel-system problem and Red Bull reported drivability and balance troubles, Verstappen calling the RB22 “horrendous,” leaving the stewards’ forthcoming ruling as the key determinant of the final Sprint grid.

Mercedes stamped its authority on the solitary practice hour at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. George Russell set the outright pace in FP1 with a 1:32.741, and teammate Kimi Antonelli was 0.120s adrift to complete a Mercedes 1-2. The one-hour session — the only practice before sprint qualifying under Shanghai’s compact schedule — left Mercedes more than half a second clear of the nearest challengers on the timing screen.

McLaren and Ferrari were the closest rivals in the limited running: Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri posted the best non-Mercedes times, around 0.56s and 0.73s back respectively, while Charles Leclerc also featured among the early challengers. Teams used the hour for short-run tire work and setup experiments — notably Ferrari introduced a new ‘macarena’ rear wing, which could reduce Mercedes’ straight-line advantage if it proves effective.

Lewis Hamilton briefly ran the ‘macarena’ wing and soft tires during the session but remained well off Russell’s medium-tire benchmark. The session also produced several incidents and reliability concerns teams must address: Hamilton and Norris made contact during an overtaking attempt, with Hamilton spinning and heavily flat-spotting his tires; Franco Colapinto and Oliver Bearman also spun; Arvid Lindblad stopped with smoke; and Carlos Sainz missed much of the hour with a data issue.

Red Bull appeared off the pace in FP1, with Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar running outside the top spots, reinforcing the picture of a weekend in which Mercedes remained the team to beat and others must use sparse track time to try to close the gap.

Mercedes held a clear performance advantage over Ferrari going into the Chinese Grand Prix, driven largely by active-aero/straight-mode and differences in energy and engine deployment. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc both said Mercedes showed a distinct edge after the Australian Grand Prix, with Hamilton putting the qualifying gap at about eight tenths and the race-trim deficit at four to five tenths; in another report he described Ferrari as roughly half a second per lap slower in race trim.

Observers attributed much of Mercedes’ edge to the W17’s straight-mode performance and how that system lets Mercedes deploy energy more effectively on flying laps, making their cars harder to clip on the straights. Formula 1 confirmed straight mode will be enabled at several sector pairs in Shanghai, and Hamilton urged Ferrari to work out how Mercedes achieved the “huge step.” George Russell’s dominant weekend in Melbourne — converting pole into victory after a near-0.8s pole advantage over non-Mercedes cars — underlined the gap.