Sprint China, Ferrari hopes for the start
The Sprint Qualifying of the Chinese GP confirmed the clear superiority of Mercedes. George Russell – still in pole position ahead of Kimi Antonelli – preceded all the competition by more than six tenths, throwing Lewis Hamilton into despair who was also happy with his lap (“It was great“) but he sees himself fourth and very far from the W17.
The big advantage that Mercedes has over the rest of the grid is the engine, and it is not surprising that a large part of the gap can be traced back to the last sector, where the very long straight before the finish line reigns supreme. Tomorrow both Russell and Antonelli will therefore have to look at the mirrors at the start, because above all Ferrari will go on the attack. Hamilton and Leclerc (sixth today) will have the advantage of the smaller turbo and will try to get in front already in turn-1. But Russell warns them: Mercedes has improved a lot compared to seven days ago.
Russell’s words
“You have to expect the unexpected, I don’t know what will happen. My starts in practice were probably the best of the season so farI think we have found improvements”This is the British man’s comment. “From Melbourne onwards we have only worked on this aspect. We concentrated fully on the starts, thank goodness the two close to me are two with Mercedes engines, I hope they won’t be as fast as the Ferraris. In the race the problem could be graining, last year it was an important factor, we’ll see what we can do“.
“The car feels fantastic, it’s excellent, with an engine that ran very well. It was truly a joy to drive today“, he added in his Mercedes.”Melbourne was a little more confused in the first laps than we would have liked, but we’ll see how it goes tomorrow. It wasn’t too bad, though…“.
