Oscar Piastri beats Lando Norris to Chinese GP pole as George Russell stuns

Lewis Hamilton was aiming to build on his sprint race victory earlier in the day while Lando Norris was keen to return to the front of the grid and secure a second Grand Prix pole of 2025

Oscar Piastri secured the first Grand Prix pole position of his Formula 1 career after team-mate Lando Norris was forced to abort his final lap. The two McLaren cars were split by George Russell who produced a superb performance to put his Mercedes on the front row for the start of the Chinese Grand Prix.

Piastri put himself in the driving seat and on provisional pole with the quickest lap of anyone in the first runs of Q3 in Shanghai. He then improved on his final effort with a huge final sector, while few others could find any more pace.

That included his team-mate Norris who, like he did in qualifying for the Sprint race a day earlier, aborted his final run after making a mistake. That opened the door for Russell to walk through with a very impressive final lap in his Mercedes which was good enough for a place on the front row.

Max Verstappen didn’t have the best preparation for his final run as Isack Hadjar was released directly into his path in the pit lane and that meant he was in the hot air of the Racing Bulls car on his last lap and had to settle for fourth place, ahead of Lewis Hamilton who won the Sprint race earlier in the day.

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Red Bull again were forced to progress to Q2 with only one car still in the session as Liam Lawson suffered another early exit. He was 20th and last, as he had been the day before in qualifying for the sprint race, more than a second off the pace set by Norris at the front.

All those in the bottom five were similarly far back in terms of timings. Both Alpine cars were casualties of Q1, Pierre Gasly 16th and team-mate Jack Doohan 18th. Oliver Bearman split them in 17th while another rookie, Gabriel Bortoleto, was 19th.

Carlos Sainz was very strong in pre-season testing but was outqualified again by his new Williams team-mate Alex Albon and managed to go only 15th fastest in Q2. There were no other major surprises with the other Sauber and Haas cars failing to make it through, though Aston Martin will be disappointed to have lost both their cars.

Their failure was a gain again for Racing Bulls who continued to show strong pace at the start of this new season. Yuki Tsunoda looks very comfortable in the car while rookie Isack Hadjar continues to impress and made it to Q3 on a circuit at which he has never driven before this weekend.

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