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.

George Russell publicly accused Ferrari of blocking the FIA from changing Formula 1’s start procedure ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, calling the team ‘selfish’ and ‘a bit silly.’

He tied the dispute to start problems at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, saying low battery levels on the formation lap—caused by the harvest-limit rule—had disadvantaged cars that qualified in the front half. Russell said the FIA wanted to remove the harvest limit to prevent repeats but could not implement the change because it required a super-majority of teams and Ferrari opposed it.

He noted that some Ferrari drivers had managed strong starts under the current procedure, and Lewis Hamilton described the revised start procedure as ‘exciting’ and expected it to improve as the sport transitions to the broader 2026 power-unit and chassis changes.

Ferrari will debut a radical rear wing—nicknamed the Macarena (also called the flip-flop wing)—on the SF‑26 at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai as part of an early-season technical development arms race. Team principal Fred Vasseur says the upgrade is part of an aggressive development program, and the team plans an evolved rear-wing specification by the Canadian Grand Prix in May; reports indicated three different specifications of the Macarena were sent to Shanghai for the sprint weekend.

Video from pre-season testing in Bahrain showed the wing’s top element rotating a full 180 degrees, effectively turning the flap upside down to reduce drag. Ferrari first ran the device on the penultimate day of testing with limited mileage and chose not to use it at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. In Shanghai the wing was positioned to operate along the circuit’s 1.1 km straight.

Rivals and Ferrari personnel framed the rollout as part of a rapid development battle. Lewis Hamilton said Ferrari ran the device “a full day or so” in Bahrain, praised Ferrari’s engineers for accelerating upgrades, and said he was keen to see its impact in China while warning the title fight will be decided by an ongoing “development war.” Hamilton also noted qualifying gaps of roughly eight tenths and race deficits of four to five tenths to Mercedes after Ferrari finished third and fourth in Melbourne following a pit-stop strategy blunder that likely cost a probable win. Others, including Lando Norris, have highlighted Ferrari’s strong cornering pace, and Ferrari has introduced other upgrades this season—including a smaller turbo intended to help race starts—as teams escalate technical development early in the season.

McLaren conceded after the Australian Grand Prix that the team is “nowhere near” the front. Lando Norris said there was “zero chance at the minute” of matching the top teams, estimating McLaren were roughly 0.5-0.6 seconds per lap off the pace. He singled out Ferrari as having “the best car” with “unbelievable” cornering, pointed to Red Bull’s pace when Max Verstappen nearly caught him, and warned the team faces a long, tough season unless it closes the gap quickly.

Team data and commentary pointed to a complex package shortfall rather than a single cause. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the team was “a little puzzled,” noting losses both on the straights and through certain corners and describing a performance gap of roughly 0.5-1.0 seconds that mirrored the near one-second qualifying deficit to George Russell. GPS analysis and team data highlighted straight-line time loss despite McLaren and Mercedes using the same power unit, and Stella added that limited information from Mercedes about their new engine hampered McLaren’s understanding.

Severe front-tire graining after only a few laps compounded the problem, masking some pace and forcing two-stop strategies that left McLaren more than 50 seconds adrift of the winner. Most sources put Norris about 51-52 seconds behind Russell, though one report cited a 35.5-second gap. Outside analysts flagged the need for aero and package upgrades — Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle said McLaren “need an aero upgrade” — and Stella warned corrective upgrades will take a few races to arrive. The result was George Russell’s victory and a Mercedes 1-2 in Melbourne; Oscar Piastri, who had topped FP2 and shown early weekend pace, was unable to start after a reconnaissance-lap crash, leaving McLaren with only Norris to assess the deficit.

The F1 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai (March 13–15) is the season’s first sprint weekend and the first of six sprint events. Key session times (Shanghai / UK): Friday practice 11:30 / 03:30; sprint qualifying 15:30 / 07:30; Saturday sprint 11:00 / 03:00; Saturday qualifying 15:00 / 07:00; Sunday Grand Prix 15:00 / 07:00.

Teams will have only a single hour of practice before sprint qualifying under the sprint format, producing a compressed schedule for teams and drivers.

U.K. viewers will be able to watch every session live on Sky Sports F1 (streamable via Sky Go; subscriptions from £22/month), with free highlights on Channel 4 and live text coverage on Crash.net.

Tensions boiled over after the season-opening Australian Grand Prix when Mercedes’ dominant new 2026 power unit prompted public complaints from its customer teams about information sharing and transparency. McLaren, Williams and newly aligned customer Alpine said they were caught off guard by the works team’s advantage under the new hybrid-centric regulations, with McLaren boss Andrea Stella saying his team felt “on the back foot” and asking Mercedes High Performance Powertrains (HPP) for more data and operational tools. Williams principal James Vowles described himself as “a bit shocked,” estimating roughly a three-tenths-per-lap shortfall for Williams attributable to the engine, while McLaren pointed to an operational knowledge gap around the hybrid system. Reports varied on whether customers had identical tools: Vowles said he believed Williams received the same PU tools as Mercedes but had not unlocked the observed performance.

The complaints followed a commanding showing by Mercedes in Melbourne after the works team introduced its new power unit: George Russell topped all three qualifying segments, Mercedes locked out the front row and converted the advantage into a race win and a one-two result for the works cars. Qualifying gaps to Russell’s pole were reported up to 0.8 seconds and race deficits for customer cars exceeded 50 seconds, with McLaren’s Lando Norris the next-best Mercedes-powered driver in fifth and Alpine finishing a lap down in 10th; Williams failed to score. The scale of the on-track gap — and the central role of the hybrid system under the new rules — underpinned customer calls for more detailed technical cooperation or workarounds to close the deficit.

Mercedes and its defenders pushed back. Team principal Toto Wolff framed the situation as part of a steep technical transition and defended how Mercedes treated its customers, saying he had not heard specific technical complaints and warning that “you can never deploy things to make everybody happy.” Former driver Ralf Schumacher, speaking on a podcast, accused McLaren of using public complaints as a smokescreen for a poor start, argued Mercedes likely supplied the necessary information, and stressed that Mercedes built the 2026 power unit both for itself and its three customer teams. Alpine’s Steve Nielsen emphasized a positive working relationship with Mercedes and declined to blame the power unit for his team’s result. Observers noted that if the information-sharing issues are not resolved, the asymmetry in data and operating guidance could help shape the competitive order early in the 2026 season.

Rookie Gabriel Bortoleto finished ninth in the season-opening, 58-lap Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, handing Audi its first-ever Formula 1 points. It was a top-10 debut for the R26 chassis and Audi’s new power unit; Audi called the result “a positive baseline to build on.” The finish reflected preparatory work at Hinwil and Neuburg and matched the top-10 debut achieved by Haas in 2016 after Audi entered F1 this season as the only brand-new power-unit manufacturer following its takeover of Sauber.

Bortoleto, the 2024 FIA Formula 2 champion, reached Q3 and qualified 10th and described the weekend as “surreal” after a troubled pre-season, praising the team for delivering a race-ready car. One report said he missed the final moments of qualifying after being stranded at the pit entry. He lost places at the start amid opening-lap effects from the removal of the MGU-H but recovered through the race, closing on Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad on the final lap and narrowly missing eighth. Bortoleto said the sport’s new technical era — hybrid systems and active aerodynamics — produced wild energy swings that caught him out, with some overtakes happening “by mistake,” and that he is still learning the regulations and energy-management strategy.

The chaotic Melbourne weekend, with multiple incidents, safety cars and pit stops, shaped strategies and outcomes; Audi finished ahead of teams including Alpine, Williams and the debuting Cadillac squad. The weekend also exposed areas needing rapid attention: team leaders praised the engine division for delivering a reliable debut package but warned the internal-combustion engine still lacks power and will require rapid development, particularly because rival manufacturers already have multiple cars running the same power units, creating a short-term performance gap. Nico Hülkenberg did not start after his car lost telemetry; mechanics pushed the car to the grid in breach of procedures, which initially forced a pit-lane start, and a subsequent fluid leak left the No. 27 in the garage. Officials called the result encouraging but cautioned that substantial work remains to close the deficit to established competitors.

Honda’s persistent power‑unit reliability problems have put serious strain on the new Aston Martin–Honda partnership and undermined Aston Martin’s early 2026 performance. The season‑opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne ended in a double DNF for Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll after the team completed very limited mileage and repeatedly suffered battery‑related vibrations and other mechanical failures.

Drivers and senior figures expressed frustration: Alonso warned the problems were likely to persist into the Chinese Grand Prix and said “finishing a full race in China already looked optimistic,” while Honda Racing president Koji Watanabe warned the relationship “can’t stay the same.” Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll called the troubled start “very unexpected.”