George Russell verdict on Lewis Hamilton's chance of winning China sprint race

George Russell is confident that Mercedes has a “shot” in the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix after qualifying fifth-fastest.

Russell set a best lap of 1m31.169s in the sprint qualifying on Friday afternoon, finishing three tenths down on polesitter and former Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.

It leaves the Briton firmly in the mix with other drivers from F1’s big four teams, with Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris all starting near him on the grid.

Russell, who had a minor scare in SQ2 until a late effort guided him safely into the final leg of qualifying, he feels fifth was representative of where Mercedes stands in the pecking order over a single lap.

“I was pretty happy with the lap in SQ3 and Lewis to get pole, that was a pretty great lap,” he said.

“I think P5 was where we were today. It was strange in Q2 at one moment I was outside the top 10 the next I jumped up to P2. I didn't feel any different, to be honest.

“We always know it's a bit tricky with the tyres, and with the sprint race, you've only got so few laps, you gotta really nail it and, today we did. P5 is not bad for us.”

Russell was surprised to see Piastri and Norris qualify only third and sixth respectively for the race, but reckons Mercedes has a good chance against McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari in Saturday’s short-distance race.

“I think it can just go any way between the top couple of teams,’ he said when asked about his predictions for the sprint.

“It was a bit of a surprise with McLaren, because they were flying in practice, flying in Q1 and Q2 and at the end Lewis and Max did a did a pretty good job [to outqualify them].

“We were sort of right behind them as well. But I think we have got a shot in the sprint. I think that could be quite an interesting race.”

Kimi Antonelli P7 for Chinese GP sprint race

Andrea Kimi Antonelli qualified seventh for Saturday’s sprint race at Shanghai, albeit two places and five tenths behind his more experienced teammate Russell.

This was still a much better qualifying attempt from the Mercedes rookie, who was knocked out in Q1 at the Australian Grand Prix just a week ago.

Antonelli feels he would have been able to extract more time out of the car had he not struggled to warm up his soft tyres before the start of his flying lap.

“It was looking good. SQ2 was pretty tight and I was feeling good with the car,” he explained. “But on soft I really struggled in that first lap, especially [because] I felt the grip was very poor.

“I think the warm-up was not optimal on my side, and when I started the lap, the tyres were too cold and I really struggled during the whole lap, with tyre grip.

“Still, you know, better qualifying than Melbourne for sure, and we'll see what we can do tomorrow.

“On medium I was feeling really good, to be honest. Especially, last two I was always able to find time. The feeling was good out there, but yeah, shame that on softs it didn't go as well.”