The Chinese Grand Prix weekend has been a brilliant example of just how competitive this season could prove to be, if we look at the two grids that have been set during the Sprint event.

On Friday, the front row consisted of a Ferrari (Lewis Hamilton) and a Red Bull (Max Verstappen), and the pair would go on to finish first and third respectively in the Sprint.

Come Saturday afternoon, it was two totally different teams securing the top two positions with McLaren (Oscar Piastri) on pole and Mercedes (George Russell) in second.

And for Piastri, the timing couldn’t have been much better. It was his first grand prix pole position, having only previously set the fastest time in a Sprint qualifying session, and it gives him a great chance at bouncing back from his disappointment from Melbourne.

Leaving his home race, where the remarkable record of no Australian having secured a podium finish — let alone a win — continued, Piastri was some 23 points adrift of teammate Lando Norris in the drivers’ championship. Early days it may be, but that was a big buffer for Norris to open up over what could well be his biggest title rival.

Although the two McLaren drivers are expected to take points off each other, the likelihood is there will be an earlier call made to back one over the other this season, should there be any other contenders. So establishing a lead early on could be particularly important, and Piastri took the first steps to reducing that with his second place in the Sprint.

Now 17 points back, Piastri then carried that momentum into qualifying, where he ticked off a first that has been a long time coming, even if it didn’t feel like a glaring omission from his résumé given his performances in Sprint qualifying in the past.

“It means a lot,” Piastri said. “I’ve been close a few times now and it’s nice to finally have my first pole. I’ve had a couple of Sprint poles, but to have the first grand prix pole means a bit more. So yeah, pretty pumped.

“I’ve worked hard for it and I feel like the start of the season has been strong. Obviously the result in Melbourne was a shame, but I feel like I’ve been doing a good job otherwise and just happy to have ended up on pole.”

It’s hard to argue against Piastri’s point. He was bettered by Norris in qualifying in Australia but was a true threat for victory until both went off track on slick tires as rain fell, and he described it as his only mistake of the weekend, but one that had a much bigger impact than his teammate’s.

Now he has outqualified Norris in both sessions in China, while he also did a solid job to clear Verstappen and pick up seven of the maximum eight points on offer in the Sprint.

Piastri fought back strongly in the Sprint, but didn’t have enough left to challenge Hamilton for the win. Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Piastri’s pole position is all the more crucial given the importance of track position in Shanghai — as was evidenced by Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Sprint and how he could pull away from the McLaren in the closing stages. Being behind Verstappen and using more of his tires to get past the Red Bull hurt Piastri that little bit more and left him with little usable rubber in the final laps.

“I think just making sure your tires survive is the biggest thing,” Piastri said. “I think we saw this morning that those that could… I would say look after their tires, but that wasn’t even really true — the people that could manage the best one way or another were the quickest.

“For my own Sprint I felt like I did a reasonable job, it was just difficult trying to get past Max. But I think we saw with Lewis being out in front all morning, it probably helped him in the long run.

“I think it’s going to be a pretty interesting race. It’s the most deg we’ve probably seen and the most graining we’ve seen in a long time. So it’ll be interesting to see if it stays the same tomorrow.”

Piastri faces multiple threats, including from Russell and Verstappen, and we’ll get stuck into how the season is shaping up for Verstappen to do something particularly special after this weekend. But perhaps the biggest challenge is likely to come from his teammate, who appreciates just how hard it is for McLaren to exploit its obvious pace with regularity.

“We’ve said it many times — it’s definitely the quickest car, but it’s still tricky to drive,” Norris said. “We can easily do good sectors every now and then but putting a lap together — like Oscar said, he was two-tenths down and then he’s kind of going for it and it stuck. But it seems just tricky to understand how to do it consistently enough.

“When you do that kind of good job, then it can easily be the quickest car. So a couple of things [to work on] and just more my driving — that rhythm of knowing exactly what to do where, how much. Also, if you push a bit too much, the tires can bite quite quickly too.

“So. many different things, but it’s also just that Oscar’s done a good job and I’ve not done a perfect job. It’s tight, so I just paid the price for not doing well enough.”

All of those factors show where the McLaren drivers are being tested, but if he can tame them then Piastri will have a golden opportunity to bounce back from his Melbourne disappointment in style, provided he can retain his advantage off the line.

And yet, either Verstappen (two points adrift of Norris) or Russell (six points back) could realistically end up leading the championship after this weekend, even with a Piastri victory. The McLaren driver battle is far from the only one to look out for.

Oscar Piastri scored his first Formula 1 grand prix pole position after dominating qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Piastri set two times quick enough for pole, with his second lap setting the track record for the Shanghai International Circuit at 1m30.641s, eclipsing the previous best set by Lewis Hamilton in Sprint qualifying 24 hours earlier.

The Australian, who has twice started from pole for sprints but never for a grand prix, said he “had a little scream in my helmet” after sealing the deal at the end of two scrappy laps in difficult conditions.

“I think in Q3 I just found a lot of pace,” he said. “The car just came alive in Q3, and I think I came alive in Q3.

“I’m happy with what I did in the end. Even still, the laps were a little bit scruffy. I’m just pumped to be on pole, so I’m very happy.”

The lead-up to Q3 strongly suggested that Piastri was set to share the front row with teammate Lando Norris, but the Briton failed to improve with his final lap and abandoned the attempt.

That left the door open to the late-improving George Russell to sneak into second on the grid after a lukewarm build-up to the pole shootout, the Briton falling just 0.082s short of top spot.

“It feels incredible, to be honest,” he said. “It was one of the hardest quali session I’ve done in a long, long time.

“I did something totally different on that last lap and it totally came alive. The lap was just awesome so happy to be P2.”

Norris was left third on the grid and 0.152s off the pace, although he was satisfied to at least improve on his sixth-place qualification for the Sprint.

“I’m always disappointed when I’m not on pole, but Oscar deserves it today,” he said. “He’s done a very good job all weekend.

“I just made a couple of mistakes. The car was feeling a bit better today. I’m feeling a lot more comfortable in the car – a step in the right direction, especially from yesterday, when I was struggling a lot.”

Max Verstappen had been a front-row contender but also failed to improve on his follow-up lap, dropping him to fourth and 0.176s off the pace. It put him ahead of Sprint winner Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, who were 0.286s and 0.38s respectively off pole.

Isack Hadjar impressed in seventh, lapping 0.438s off pole and beating Racing Bulls teammate Yuki Tsunoda by two places and more than half a second.

Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli split the Faenza pair in eighth, while Alex Albon completed the top 10 for Williams.

Esteban Ocon was just 0.03s short of making Haas’s first Q3 appearance of the season, leaving him 11th ahead of Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.

Fernando Alonso narrowly beat Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll in 13th and 14th, while Carlos Sainz was 15th for Williams.

Alpine teammates Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan were knocked out 16th and 18th, sandwiching Haas rookie Oliver Bearman despite being split by just 0.1s.

Gabriel Bortoleto was 19th for Sauber ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Liam Lawson, who replicated his Sprint qualifying performance by lapping slowest of the field. The Kiwi was 0.75s slower than Q1-bound teammate Verstappen, similar to his 0.813s margin from Friday night’s session.

Lewis Hamilton says a number of his critics have been “yapping along the way” and not understanding the size of the task he faces as he called for calm following his victory in the Sprint at the Chinese Grand Prix.

The seven-time world champion’s move to Ferrari has drawn huge attention as Hamilton left Mercedes after 12 seasons. Trying to adapt to a new team, Hamilton believes there was an overreaction to the first race struggles in Melbourne, and that he instantly felt in a better position with his new car prior to taking Sprint pole and a comfortable victory.

“I woke up feeling great today, the weather’s beautiful here in Shanghai, knowing we have this amazing crowd, but the first race was difficult,” Hamilton said. “And I really do feel a lot of people underestimated the steep climb it is to get into a new team, to become acclimatized within the team, understanding, communication, all sorts of things.

“The amount of critics and people I’ve heard yapping along the way, clearly not understanding, maybe because they’ve not had the experience or are just unaware… So it felt great to come here and feel more comfortable in the car, because in Melbourne I really didn’t feel comfortable in the car.

“From lap one here this weekend, I’ve really been feeling on it. The engineers have done a great job, the mechanics have done a great job, to really fine-tune the car, and it felt great today. I got a good start, and then there’s so much grip on this new tarmac it’s really hard to look after these tires, but I think everyone was struggling the same.”

Hamilton held off Max Verstappen in the first half of the race before pulling clear to win by nearly seven seconds from Oscar Piastri, but he says the same mantra rings true that Ferrari should not get carried away with the result.

“I don’t feel the pressure. I know the Tifosi, I know the fans, I know the team wants to win, and I know it means everything to them. But Rome wasn’t built in one day, one step at a time, we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We cannot.

“We’ve got to continue to push, we’ve got to be diligent and just remain focused, stay calm. Most importantly stay calm because these moments get us all excited. We’ll be back at our desks after this and focused on qualifying this afternoon. It’s a long, long way. It’s a marathon not a Sprint, so we’ve just got to take our time.”

While Hamilton appeared to have the measure of the Red Bull during the Sprint, the threat of McLaren is expected to be greater if Piastri and teammate Lando Norris can improve on their Sprint qualifying positions.

“I think it was a really productive Sprint,” Piastri said. “Obviously finishing second is always a great result and I think I really learned a lot in that one. As much as the result is nice, I think the way I got the result is an encouraging thing.

“We didn’t quite have enough pace for Lewis at the front but I think we’ve got some good ideas for this afternoon and tomorrow and we’ll see if we can go one spot better.

“Yes [I’m confident for Sunday’s race], hopefully we don’t have as much traffic though, that’s the plan. We’ll see what we can do this afternoon to start a bit higher and then go from there. But I think we’ve got good pace in the car, we’ve clearly got a lot of competition this weekend – the Ferrari look pretty rapid – so we’ve got to be on our best form.”

Lewis Hamilton claimed his first win for Ferrari by controlling the Shanghai sprint race from pole.

Hamilton got the perfect getaway to avoid any challenge into the long and tightening first turn, cementing his lead as the pack punched out of the downhill Turn 3.

Max Verstappen followed Hamilton out, but behind him Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc were scuffling for third. Leclerc found himself on the inside of Turn 3 but got the poorer exit, allowing the Australian to hold his place with better traction.

Piastri wasn’t the only McLaren in action, however, with teammate Lando Norris, starting sixth, initiating a scrap for fifth with George Russell. He briefly found himself ahead out of Turn 3 but was forced to fall back into line, and an attempt to get around the Mercedes’s outside at Turn 6 then ended in disaster, with the McLaren dipping its left wheels onto the dirt and slithering briefly off track. That freed Russell to target Charles Leclerc, whom he passed easily at the end of the long back straight for fourth.

The early positioning was critical. Pirelli had raised the minimum tire pressures overnight to cope with the grippy new track surface, which was baked to near 100 degrees F for the sprint, forcing drivers into a phase of management to ensure their medium tires could make it to the checkered flag.

The gaps between the top three waxed and waned as they grappled with the required management. By lap 10 Piastri was clearly the driver with the deft touch. He began to apply pressure to Verstappen, forcing the Dutchman to watch his papaya-filled mirrors rather than the scarlet Ferrari ahead.

The first parry came at the beginning of lap 14, when Verstappen forced Piastri into an impossible attempt around his outside at the first turn. It was a costly maneuver for the Dutchman, however.

“Both of my front tires are dead,” he lamented as Piastri lined him up for a second attempt.

The Australian wouldn’t miss with his second attempt on lap 15 of 19. Getting a superb run out of Turn 13, he used DRS to draw alongside the Red Bull Racing car and pit it to the outside of the turn, depriving him of second place.

It was music to Hamilton’s ears. With the benefit of clear air the Briton used the battle for second place to open up his lead. By the time Piastri moved into second, he was already 2.7s up the road, a margin he stretched by another second the following lap.

Hamilton cruised to the checkered flag with a comfortable 6.8s margin to claim his first win in red and his and Ferrari’s first ever sprint victory.

“I woke up feeling great today,” he said. “From lap 1 here this weekend I was really feeling on it.

“We’ve done a great job. The engineers have done a great job. the mechanics have done a great job to really fine-tune the car. It felt great today.”

Piastri was satisfied to claim second and validate his car’s strong tire management, which bodes well for the longer grand prix on Sunday.

“I think it was a really productive sprint,” he said. “I think I really learned a lot in that one.

“As much as the result is a nice thing, the way I got the result was an encouraging thing. We didn’t quite have enough pace for Lewis out front, but I think we’ve got some good ideas for [qualifying] this afternoon and tomorrow, and we’ll see if we can go one spot better.”

Verstappen described his race as a battle for survival, saying he was lucky to hold third after his tires began falling apart.

“Unfortunately, I think the last eight laps we just didn’t have the pace of the others — I was just trying to survive out there, so I’ll definitely take that P3,” he said. “Even the cars behind were catching up a lot [in the end].

“In general I think we just lack a bit of overall pace. You push a bit harder, you kill your tires a bit more, so that makes it difficult.”

Russell spent the final two laps sternly defending Leclerc to hold fourth ahead of the Ferrari. The Monegasque complained that his car was “undrivable” through the crucial Turn 13, the long right-hander leading onto the back straight, leaving him unable to capitalize on the track’s best overtaking spot at the hairpin.

Yuki Tsunoda jumped two places on the first lap — one off the line and another thanks to the errant Norris — and did admirably to hold the place ahead of the much faster Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Norris spent most of the Sprint outside the points and complaining that his tires were cooked while running in the midfield, but Lance Stroll ahead of him was about to struggle more, dropping into the McLaren’s clutches in the final laps. It was a clinical pass for the championship leader in the end, passing with DRS into the hairpin to score the final point of the race.

Stroll finished ninth ahead of teammate Fernando Alonso, Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly and Isack Hadjar.

Liam Lawson recovered from 19th on the grid to 14th with some elbows-out overtaking at the hairpin, making contact with Jack Doohan and Gabriel Bortoleto and losing some bodywork as a result.

Haas teammates Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon followed ahead of Carlos Sainz, who was the only driver in the field to make a pit stop.

Bortoleto finished 18th ahead of Sauber teammates Nico Hulkenberg and Alpine rookie Jack Doohan.

Doohan’s race ended with him pointing in the wrong direction at the hairpin after tagging Bortoleto in a clumsy overtaking attempt.