Lewis Hamilton broke the lap record at the Shanghai International Circuit to claim the pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race. Revealing that he was “in shock,” the seven-time world champion set a blistering time of 1:30.849 seconds, beating Max Verstappen‘s 1:30.867.
The race weekend at Shanghai is expected to offer a true picture of where all teams stand in terms of pace, considering the circuit’s high-speed corners and long straights, where cars exceed speeds of 330 km/h. The wet conditions during the race in Melbourne last weekend failed to highlight the performance gains made by the teams over the winter break.
Hamilton’s pole position and Charles Leclerc securing fourth on the grid for Saturday’s sprint race point to Ferrari being one of the obvious favorites for the race weekend in China. Hamilton said that the quick pace of his SF-25 was unexpected, but he knew that the car had more to offer. Speaking to F1TV, he said:
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“Firstly, I want to say a big thank you to this amazing crowd here today.
“I didn’t expect that result, but so so happy and so proud. Obviously, the last race was a disaster for us and clearly we knew there was more performance in the car but we just weren’t able to extract it.
“So, to come here to a track that I love, Shanghai, beautiful place, and the weather has been amazing and the car really came alive from Lap 1. We made some great changes. The team did a fantastic job through the break to get the car ready.
“I’m a bit in shock. I can’t believe we got a pole in the sprint. Obviously, it’s not the main race, so we’ve got work to do for tomorrow but this was a good step for the race.”
The 40-year-old remarked after the Australian Grand Prix that the car had more performance to offer, a claim that was backed up with today’s performance. Newsweek Sports reported:
“But I do believe the car has more performance than we were able to extract this weekend. It was even less performance, for example, in the race, but I think it’s all settings.”
He added:
“I definitely made a step. I think just for me, it was just confidence. It’s like just building confidence.
“From the moment I got in the car on Friday, I didn’t have the confidence, particularly in all the high speed, I was down a huge amount.
“Then into Saturday, confidence was coming back, was building, building, building. And then we got to the race, and again, starting from scratch, and I didn’t have any confidence, through pretty much most of the race.
“But I think in the settings as well, the car was very tricky.”
As Hamilton grows comfortable with his new car, tomorrow’s sprint race will offer a clearer picture of the true pecking order among drivers and teams.