Chinese GP: Difficult qualifying for the team on a day of contrasts

There was more drama in Q2, which had to be interrupted midway through due to an accident involving Carlos Sainz (Ferrari). The Ferrari driver crashed into the wall in turn 16, but was able to drive back to the pits during the red flag.

George was on a fast lap at the time but had to abandon it. Until then, his lap was on a par with Oscar Piastri's time in the McLaren, who was P3 at the time.

To be on the safe side, George was the first driver to go out at the end of Q2. His time was good enough for P6 and thus a place in Q3.

In Q3, George first did a run on used Soft tyres before starting his final run on a new set of Soft tyres. In the end, he finished P8 in a difficult qualifying session for the team.

That was it for the first "Super Saturday" of the season. After the F1 Sprint and Grand Prix Qualifying on the same day, it's back to normal tomorrow: It's Race Day!

To round off the F1 comeback weekend in China, the 17^th Chinese Grand Prix awaits the 20 drivers. The 56-lap race starts at 15:00 local time (08:00 UK time). George and Lewis will start the fifth race of the season from positions 8 and 18.

George Russell

We didn’t have our best day today. With the strong wind, it was very challenging out there. The conditions had changed from Friday too, so we had to adapt. We took the Soft tyre for the Sprint and it was definitely worth the gamble. It performed OK and it gave us some good learnings for tomorrow. Ultimately, we did well to score a point.

Qualifying was also tricky. My first lap in Q2 was looking very strong but the red flag forced us to abort. We had to use another set of new tyres to progress to Q3. Without that, we would have had two new sets for the final part of Qualifying and it could have been a different outcome but who knows. We are in that fight between P3 and P8 and, unfortunately, we’ve found ourselves at the back end of that battle in the last few races in Qualifying. Small differences can have a major impact.

It is hard to predict what will happen tomorrow. It’s all to play for with those cars around us so hopefully we have the pace to move forward.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

It was great to be able to hang onto P2 with Lewis in the Sprint and for George to make enough places up to get into the points. However, neither driver was happy with the car. The wind rotated overnight and made the balance very inconsistent. In some corners we were suffering with understeer and in others the rear was very weak. To try to address that, we made extensive changes to both cars going into Qualifying. The car was quite different and ultimately that caught Lewis out in Q1 with a big lock into the hairpin on his final lap. Without that he would have gone through comfortably.

George managed a little better, but it still wasn't an easy car to drive. With only one new set of Soft tyres for Q3, P8 was ultimately the best we could do. We're at the back of a tight bunch and small steps will change the picture quite quickly, but right now we're not quick enough. We'll run the usual simulations this evening to understand how to best optimise the situation for tomorrow, but we're likely going to have to look for the opportunities to do things differently to others.