Chinese Grand Prix: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly... and the Beautiful
F1 OpinionMonday, 16 March 2026 at 13:17
Kimi Antonelli, the second youngest driver ever to win a Grand Prix, and Lewis Hamilton, the man the teenager replaced at Mercedes, got his first podium for Ferrari on Sunday at the Chinese Grand Prix. Simply Beautiful!
Joining Antonelli and Hamilton, George Russell, the new Mercedes leader, and for many already their World Champion elect, and Peter Bonnington, aka Bono. All of them are Toto Wolff's golden boys, and you have one of those beautiful podium moments in Formula 1 history, you could never script.
Of course, we know the story well. Hamilton defecting to Ferrari and Antonelli being the risk that Wolff took. And boy, as it turned out, it was an inspired one. We all know the Austrian hankered for his own Max Verstappen. He wanted a Verstappen-type prodigy, the one that slipped through his fingers when he could have had Max from day one. We all know how that turned out.
Wolff’s legacy is completed now with Antonelli, for whom he took a huge gamble, and it paid off big time. He can end his long-standing flirtation with Max with immediate effect.
This year is clearly going to be a battle for the 2026 F1 title between Antonelli and Russell. I am going to go out on a limb here and say something I have believed since the beginning of the season, with no real receipts other than a vision. Antonelli will be covered in champagne at the end of many races this year.
Granted, it will be a tough ask for Antonelli to beat Russell, who is possibly not even at the peak of his powers yet and has, by the Italian's own admission, helped the youngster adapt to the life of F1.
So you have to tip your hat to George for taking the kid under his wing rather than distancing himself from the number two car, the way Max Verstappen has done to be the big cheese at Red Bull. Now, the Englishman will know that Kimi is enemy number one in the other Merc.
Gentleman George
Russell will probably adjust his information-sharing now that Antonelli has come of age, because a Grand Prix victory is very much that moment for a driver. The Kid has done it incredibly quickly, only his second season and early in it. Getting that monkey off his back will only serve him well.
In Antonelli, I am sure we are going to see a driver who keeps improving and keeps getting better. At his age, his peak is probably still a decade away. This sets the scene for an incredible era for the sport when it comes to drivers.
In Shanghai, in front of a massive and enthusiastic crowd, Antonelli rose to the occasion, putting the car on pole and dominating the race once Russell fell out of contention. While the Melbourne winner was fighting the Ferraris, Antonelli simply eked out a lead.
When Russell finally cleared the Reds after about 10 laps, to begin closing a gap that had grown to around seven seconds. Gradually, Russell began to attack. Then Antonelli delivered a flurry of fastest laps to seal the victory. He had it pegged. It was the dominant style we have seen from champions like Verstappen and Hamilton in the past.
Prediction: Kimi will beat Russell this year to the title
Orgogliosi di te, Kimi 💙 pic.twitter.com/Xt4zsDout1
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 15, 2026
Kimi has Formula 1 World Champion written all over him. I will not be surprised if he beats George Russell this year. In fact, I will say it now. He will be the world champion. The Italian prodigy could become Formula 1’s youngest world champion, adding that record to becoming the youngest pole position winner and the second youngest Grand Prix winner.
I would also like to mention the renaissance of Sir Lewis Hamilton. The Englishman looks inspired again. The meek and almost defeated approach we saw last year appears gone. We are beginning to see glimpses of the Hamilton who became one of the greatest drivers in F1 history. It was great to see.
Charles Leclerc, in the other Ferrari, kept us entertained, racing his teammate hard while acknowledging the better man on the day and appreciating a good dice.
Ollie Bearman is another bright spark. Ferrari is well served when either Leclerc or Hamilton decides to depart. At Haas, the young Briton is proving Esteban Ocon is a has-been while providing everyone at Maranello with the comfort of knowing their driver pipeline has produced a gem.
Bearman is, like Antonelli, a driver who is going to be around this sport for a very long time and deservedly so. Maybe even become arch-rivals? I am also very happy for my many Italian mates who deserve another decent driver in F1 at last! Probably their best of the past half-century, if not more.
That, dear readers, is probably about the only good stuff out of Shanghai this past weekend..
The Bad: And there is plenty!
Two races into the season we have already seen chaos. The McLaren double non start completely ambushed me early in the morning. The F1 world champions could not even get their cars onto the grid. Again, blame these rules.
Look at the attrition. Look at the gaps. We have two extra cars on the grid this year. You would not say so. In the end, we had 15 cars 'finished', some lapped and limping across the line.
Race stats show that Antonelli finished about 25 seconds ahead of the best Ferrari. Then, the best of the rest, Bearman, in P5, was another 25 seconds behind Leclerc. In previous races, the whole field would have been covered by that kind of gap even without a safety car.
Williams are another disappointment. I wrote that James Vowles should be fired. Simple as that. Or put him in the marketing department. Something has to change because the team needs a solution for this car.
Credit to Carlos Sainz, although a lap behind the leaders, for scoring Williams first points of their season. But it is a false dawn, as the DNFs on Sunday softened the blow. All in all, embarrassing. Furthermore, spare a thought for Alex Albon, who had to watch the race he was meant to be driving in on the telly.
Aston Martin is another can of worms that deserves a deep dive. This is the richest team on the grid and yet the performance is nowhere near what Lawrence Stroll had in mind when he broke the bank to hire Adrian Newey. Not only to design the car, but also to be team boss.
Is Adrian Newey really team principal material?
I doubt it. The buck stops with Newey. You can blame Honda. You can blame the organisation. But ultimately, the responsibility sits at the top. The Team Principal. In this case, the guy who also designs the car! He has been there for a year; did he do the due diligence regarding their partners?
Most importantly, their Power Unit partners, whose track record in F1 this century has been appalling. How did Newey and his bright sparks not catch on that Honda had a B-team working on the engine? It takes one Zoom call to establish who is a numpty and who is not in any business, BS excuse.
Worth noting, I have never seen so much Adrian Newey on television since he joined Aston Martin. At McLaren, you never saw Adrian. I think they kept him in a caravan away from everyone. Ditto at Williams, and even at Red Bull, Newey's interviews were rare. Now only Vowles is on the same level of exposure.
Keep engineers away from cameras. They talk too much. Word salads. No one cares. Leave that to real team principals like Toto Wolff, Christian Horner, Fred Vasseur and the like.
Engineers should be in quiet rooms with their drawing boards, designing fast cars. The moment they step into the spotlight, they start sounding like Duracell bunnies. Enough already.
Cadillac was another embarrassment. Two of the most experienced drivers on the grid nearly taking each other out as if they have endless spares and unlimited time. If ever a F1 team looked like a Formula 2 team, this is it. Way out of their depth. Clearly underprepared. That Cadillac branding deal might backfire badly. They have come to a machine gun fight with a plastic knife.
The Ugly: Are you happy, Stefano Domenicali?
Is this really Formula 1 we saw today in China?
The double and reigning F1 Constructors' World Champions, a team of World Champions not making it to the grid, is true proof of the failure of the new engine/battery rules. How can that be? I have no words. Piastri has not completed a single Grand Prix lap so far this season. This is insanity.
Watching F1 tackle the Chinese Grand Prix, I find it hard to believe that anyone, even Domenicali, can be happy with the sh!tshow we saw in China. The world champions, who dominated last year and are two-time Constructors’ Champions in a row, had no cars on the grid for this race.
Is that because they are suddenly rubbish? Or because these rules are rubbish? $10 million engines that cannot start up and that no one, apart from Mercedes and maybe Ferrari, truly understands.
Where was the racing? I only saw (occasionally) the pinnacle of battery management. Bravo. What happened to raw F1 racing? Heart-thumping, adrenaline-spiking thumping starts have been replaced by a who-gets-off-the-grid lottery, and a Ferrari freight train at the front.
Turned into a comedy show with commentators getting 'excited' about cars losing power mid-straight and being overtaken before the braking zones. It was pretend racing. Sure, Charles Leclerc said he had fun.
You can have fun playing Mario Kart or driving LEGO cars
You can have fun karting, video gaming, whatever. This is Formula 1. You should not be having fun. Talking about managing systems while racing an F1 car. You should be focused on racing. Dicing. Fighting. Sweating. Cursing. On the edge, over the edge. Not driving one-handed through high-speed corners while adjusting buttons on the steering wheel.
We have just come out of an era of bulletproof reliability when there were races where all 20 cars finished and the field was covered by less than a second in qualifying. There was pure racing. Even with DRS, it was still real racing.
I would live with DRS. I would live with everything we had in the previous power unit era instead of this cr@p we are being force-fed and told is Formula 1.
We are not even allowed to make up our own minds. We are being told by everyone covering this sport that this is good. It's not, it's horrible.
And when you watch a driver like Verstappen, the greatest driver on the planet and arguably one of the greatest of all time in Formula 1, struggling the way he did and his car breaking down, it tells you everything you need to know.
So what happened?
Formula 1 dropped the ball by pushing this rule set through with no real Plan-B. They kept patching up a sh!t and exorbitantly costly concept. We have regressed. The sport has gone backwards. What should have been the greatest era of Formula 1, starting this season, is a disaster for our sport, a total joke. An absolute travesty.
And if Domenicali continues trying to sell this as the real thing instead of focusing all resources on fixing the problem, we are doomed for the next five years. There will be the greatest switch-off in the history of Formula 1.
People won't watch live; they will stick to YouTube highlights. This is not racing. This is fake Formula 1. And the few who believe they are seeing racing, you are forgiven because you have no friggin' clue.
And then there is Verstappen. The body language. The frustration. The mood. His brain must be exploding with alternatives to this mess. This is not what he signed up for. It is not what his rivals signed up for. It is not what we as Formula 1 fans signed up for.
It's ugly. I hate writing that. I want to be reporting the good stuff. The racing, the heroes, the designs, the drama, the intrigue, the beautiful story that F1 has always been to me. Not this piece, not how bad everything is, at a time when the world needs positivity. Breaks my heart actually.
But our F1 community has been dealt a double whammy. This sport, for many, including me, has gripped us our entire lives. The moment I sit down to watch a race, I am normally sucked in and left in awe. Always finding beauty in the sport.
But lately, over these last two race weekends, I am not seeing the sport I fell in love with. I see magnificent drivers managing machines, playing a video game.
Sorry Stefano. I cannot like the Formula 1 you have created. Please spend less time and energy spin-doctoring this sh!tshow and focus your time on a quick fix. It's a crisis. It is an emergency.
Our main man, Verstappen, summed it up best after China: "It's not about being upset at where I am, because I'm actually fighting even more now, I would say the same if I was winning races, because I care about the racing product. For me, it's a joke. fundamentally flawed. It will eventually ruin the sport. It will come and bite them back in the ass. Maybe some fans like it, but they don't understand racing."
Dear Max,
Stefano and his spin doctors are not with you, but everyone I know who loves Formula 1, who cares for the product, young and old, is with you. We understand racing.
Stay strong, Champ!
Stefano and his spin doctors are not with you, but everyone I know who loves Formula 1, who cares for the product, young and old, is with you. We understand racing.
Stay strong, Champ!
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