There was a sense of bafflement lingering in the Shanghai paddock after Sprint qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix – and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri seemed slightly stunned by what Mercedes managed to pull off.
For the second race weekend in a row under Formula 1’s new 2026 regulations, the Silver Arrows locked out the front row in a qualifying session.
George Russell once again led team-mate Kimi Antonelli, this time claiming sprint pole by 0.289s as rivals struggled to make sense of their pace.
Behind them, McLaren’s Lando Norris salvaged third, but the rest of the field was left peering at the timing screens with raised eyebrows. Piastri, fifth, found himself in the strange position of being happy with his car while simultaneously being bewildered by the stopwatch.
“It was reasonable,” he said, describing his performance. “I think the step in grip from the medium to the soft was pretty big. But yeah, obviously the gap to Mercedes is pretty impressive.
“So, some things for us to try and work on. I think the car felt pretty good. It was a pretty decent lap. I don't think there was too much left.”
In other words: McLaren found performance – just not enough to snap at the heels of the Mercedes rocket ship.
Signs of progress for McLaren
Despite the puzzling benchmark set by Russell and Antonelli, there were indeed hints McLaren is beginning to unlock more from its 2026 package.
Team principal Andrea Stella pointed to improved understanding of the power unit deployment as a key step forward compared to the chaotic start to the season in Australia.
“There's some indications of improvements,” said Stella. “Especially I would say in the way we understand how to use the power unit, there was less variability in the first practice session, more clarity as to how we were using it during qualifying.
“This was realised in some better lap times, which allow us to qualify behind Mercedes, that at the moment are out of reach.
“But it's good to see that McLaren can fight for the runner-up position together with Ferrari, a good start position with Oscar and Lando, they both drove very well and it's a good situation for the sprint tomorrow.”
That “runner-up fight” appears to be the current battleground. Ferrari slotted into fourth and sixth with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, leaving McLaren and the Scuderia closely matched behind the runaway Mercedes.
Norris’ third place on the grid underlined that fight, with the Briton satisfied to edge both Ferraris despite the daunting margin to pole.
“P3 is as good as we can do for the time being,” said the reigning world champion. “I'm actually pretty happy to beat both the Ferraris today because they seemed pretty good the whole day.
“Good position for tomorrow. Certainly things have been better this weekend, just because the track's a lot more simple from that side of things, from a power unit side of things.
“So everyone kind of falls in line a bit more, but we certainly seemed to get a good amount out of it at the end and it was close. So a good lap put me in a good position.”
Still, the bigger mystery remains unsolved: how Mercedes have made the new rules look so easy while everyone else is left trying to decode the trick.
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