A crazy Saturday for Mercedes
Andrea Kimi Antonelli just wrote her name in the record books. At only 19 years old, the Mercedes driver this Saturday became the youngest in history to achieve pole position for a complete Formula 1 Grand Prix.
And he did so after teammate George Russell, who had won the sprint race hours earlier, had a difficult qualifying session. Technical problems forced the Briton to stop on the track and slowly return to the pits.
“It’s just the beginning, so obviously there’s a lot more to come. I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” Antonelli said after his feat.
The team managed to get Russell’s car going with seconds to spare. He set a time that earned him second position, just 0.222 seconds behind the Italian prodigy.
Ferrari lurks from behind
The Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will start third and fourth. Their famously fast starts could be a real threat to Mercedes when the lights go out, as they already demonstrated in Australia and in Saturday’s sprint.
Russell described his session as “crazy”, blaming a damaged front wing and gearbox problems. He had to set his final time with a low battery and cold tires.
In the morning sprint race, the Briton had managed to contain the Ferrari attack. Hamilton and Leclerc were quick at the start, exchanging positions with Russell in the opening laps.
“Lewis did an incredible job in the first few laps. He took me by surprise — 20 years of experience. So I still have a little bit to learn,” Russell admitted of his veteran teammate.
Hamilton received a standing ovation from the crowd in Shanghai when he greeted in Chinese from the grid. He eventually finished third in the sprint, behind Leclerc.
Adapting to a new era
Major technical changes for 2026 – the most radical in a decade – continue to test pilots. The new formula requires balancing electrical power and internal combustion at 50%.
Russell is one of its biggest defenders and compared the sprint battle to “go-kart racing.” He said he did not remember an F1 where three or four cars fought so evenly for a position.
Not everyone is so happy. Max Verstappen, quadruple world champion, finished ninth in the sprint and was clear:
“Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. We simply need to get our things in order.”
While some struggle to master the electrical power that sometimes comes in unpredictably, a teenager named Kimi Antonelli has just shown that the future has already arrived.
