What the teams said – Sprint Qualifying at the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix

Mercedes

Mercedes were another team to look in decent nick in practice, but come Sprint Qualifying they didn’t quite have the pace of the other top teams. They were struggling with tyre warm up, having to go for double out-laps on the mediums which cost valuable time. Both drivers made SQ3 which was an improvement on last week, with Russell grabbing the honours with a tidy lap. Antonelli had a big slide through Turn 1, which cost him a chunk of time.

George Russell, 5th, 1:31.169

“It was tricky to extract the maximum from the tyres across Sprint Qualifying; one moment in SQ2 we were outside the top 10 and the next we were second, even though both laps felt similar. That shows how small the gaps were out there today, but I think P5 is probably a fair result. I was pretty happy with my lap in SQ3 and it’s not a bad place to start. It’s always tough to nail Sprint Qualifying having had so little laps on track in the only hour of practice, so we can be pleased with our efforts.

“Let’s see what happens tomorrow in both the Sprint and Qualifying. It was a surprise to see the McLarens struggle a little more in SQ3 and we have four different teams in the top five. We’ve definitely got the chance to move forward in the Sprint and challenge those ahead, so hopefully that is what we can do.”

Kimi Antonelli, 7th, 1:31.738

“I was feeling good with the car throughout Sprint Qualifying. My SQ2 lap was particularly strong, and I was hoping to build on that for SQ3. On the Soft compound though, I struggled in the first sector. The tyres were too cold, and I think we didn’t quite get the warm-up right on the out lap. The upside is that it was a better Qualifying session than Melbourne and I continue to build my learning.

“Let’s see what we can do tomorrow now. Starting P7 leaves us with work to do but I’ve felt comfortable and confident in the car today. My pace on the Medium tyre was particularly good so hopefully that translates into the rest of the weekend across all compounds.”

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

“We had a decent session this morning in FP1 but going into Sprint Qualifying we were still building our understanding of exactly what to do with the Medium tyre. It seemed to be getting better on the second lap, but others were clearly able to extract the time on the first lap better than ourselves. By the end of SQ2, both drivers had set solid times; the McLarens were looking strong but we looked to be in a tight bunch behind him.

“For the final run in SQ3, we chose to go early following McLaren out of the pit lane. George did a reasonable lap but never felt like he had the necessary grip from the Soft tyre to challenge for pole. Kimi lacked grip in the first sector meanwhile and the sliding through the tricky first few cost him around the rest of the lap. The positive is that he is still in the mix from P7 and making it into the third segment of Qualifying continues to build his learning. With the benefit of perfect hindsight we’d have gone at the end as the track looked to improve a little, but it still looks like the others are getting a bit more out of the new softs. We’ve got a bit of time to try and understand that ahead of main qualifying tomorrow.

“Tomorrow’s Sprint promises to be an intriguing session. Whilst we start P5 and P7, we were pleased with our long run on the Medium compound in FP1, and the competitive order is hard to predict. We will do our best to bring home a solid haul of points before focusing our efforts on Qualifying for Sunday’s Grand Prix later in the day.”