Russell holds of Ferrari to win first Sprint of the season

Russell takes the sprint win in China

It was more joy for George Russell as he won the opening sprint race ahead of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. It was an enthralling fight with Lewis Hamilton in the opening stage's of the race, reminiscent of last week in Melbourne between Russell and Leclerc, where both drivers constantly swapped for the race lead. But after lap 5, graining for Hamilton saw him slip away into a fight with his teammate Charles Leclerc. A safety car brought out for Nico Hulkenberg on lap 13, following his team telling him to stop the car, bunched the grid up together. Russell executed the restart perfectly however, and took home the win in the first sprint of the season. 

Antonelli with a sprint race to forget

Kimi Antonelli started P2 for the sprint, the same place he started in Melbourne, and similarly to the start of that race, Antonelli struggled off the line, dropping down to 8th. And on the opening lap he had contact with Isack Hadjar, which resulted in a 10 second time penalty for the Italian. The pace of the Mercedes' allowed Antonelli to make overtakes and work himself up to the fight between the 2 Ferrari cars. When the safety car came out on lap 13, Antonelli served his time penalty, causing him to drop to 7th. With 3 laps of racing after the safety car, Antonelli managed to overtake Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri to finish 5th. A disappointing result for the teenager.