2026 Chinese Grand Prix Preview: 5 Big Talking Points Heading into the Weekend

Linus O'Howell
1h
3 min read

The First Sprint of 2026

After just 1 weekend with these new regulations, we’re already getting straight into Sprint action! This will probably provide chaos, with the teams and drivers only getting 1 practice session to prepare for the competitive sessions, but that should be more fun for us as fans and spectators! Keep an eye out for Max Verstappen, George Russell, and Oliver Bearman as they did pretty damn well in this format throughout 2025!

Why are Williams So Bad?

Now this may seem incredibly harsh, but that’s exactly what Williams deserve! For years, James Vowles has been telling us that nothing else matters except Williams being right towards the front in 2026, and yet, that’s the opposite of what’s going on right now! Williams have been on the back foot from the very beginning, missing the entire Barcelona Shakedown, and despite a good amount of running in Bahrain, this team still has a long way to go due to its clear “overweight” issues! This is massively holding Williams back right now, with only Aston Martin and Cadillac slower than them right now (which isn’t a good thing), and they need to fix it quickly because both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz deserve a lot better!

Where is McLaren’s Pace?

There were a lot of people who couldn’t see a way for McLaren to win more Championships in 2026 due to the fact that they’re a customer team to Mercedes! I firmly felt like McLaren could retain their Constructors’ Championship again, because of the fact that they have a Mercedes engine, something they’ve used to great success over recent years! However, I’m not sure anyone expected things to play out in Australia like they did, with Lando Norris finishing over 50 seconds off Race Winner George Russell! Qualifying wasn’t much better, with Oscar Piastri being over 8 and a half tenths off Pole, and this isn’t good enough as far as McLaren are concerned! In fact, all of the Mercedes customer teams seem frustrated at the moment, so it’s going to be fascinating to see if McLaren can close that gap any time soon!

Something to Build on for Audi

Whilst Audi’s first-ever Formula 1 Weekend had its fair share of hiccups, it also showed a lot of promising signs for the newly rebranded team! Qualifying was positive, with Audi proving to be the 6th fastest car as Gabriel Bortoleto made it into Q3! However, Gabby was unable to do a lap in Q3 due to a car failure! Now, before the Race even started, Nico Hulkenberg suffered car issues, resulting in the German not even making the start! This left Bortoleto to do the heavy lifting for Audi, and boy did he do that, finishing 9th overall to earn Audi points on debut! So, as you can see, there are a lot of teething issues at Audi right now, but the potential is certainly there!

The Scene of Hamilton’s Happiest Ferrari Moment

It’s been well documented that Lewis Hamilton’s 2025 season was the worst of his entire career, with the 7-time World Champion failing to appear on the Podium once in his first year with Ferrari! However, there was one highlight in Lewis’ first year in red, and that came in China! After pipping Max Verstappen to Sprint Pole by just 18 thousandths of a second, Hamilton pulled off a masterclass in the Sprint itself, leading from start to finish in what was very much “Vintage Lewis”! Forget about what happened a day later, this was a massive moment for both Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari, and I’m sure he’s going to be trying everything he can to replicate that this weekend!