Oscar Piastri raised the stakes in his drivers championship battle with McLaren team-mate Lando Norris by securing the first pole position of his career at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Norris won last weekend’s opening round in Australia with hometown hero Piastri ninth after he slipped off the road in the rain.
At the second round of the season in Shanghai, Piastri pulled out all the stops to see off Mercedes’s George Russell by just 0.082 seconds with Norris having to settle for third, more than a tenth adrift of the Australian.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took fourth spot, one place ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who landed his first win as a Ferrari driver in the earlier sprint race.
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Norris has been talked up as the championship favourite following his season-opening win in Melbourne, and McLaren’s apparent advantage over the rest of the field. But he suffered two setbacks on Saturday when he made a mistake on the first lap of the sprint race to cross the line in eighth before being beaten to top spot on the grid for Sunday’s main event.
Norris trailed Piastri by 0.09 seconds heading into the final runs but had to abort his second flying lap and was then usurped by Russell in the closing moments.
“That was the hairpin of my life,” said Piastri after taking top spot.
“I just had a little scream in my helmet. It was a bit of a journey to get there but we did it.”
Out of the car, he added: “I just found a lot of pace in Q3 and the car came alive. I came alive in Q3, too. Happy with what I did. The laps were a bit scruffy but I am just pumped to be on pole.”
Following his impressive sprint win, Hamilton trailed Piastri by 0.286 but finished one place ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc.
