Mercedes clinched yet another one-two finish at the Chinese Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton rounding off the podium, a long-awaited first with Ferrari.
With a race full of excitement and overtakes, there were plenty of storylines beyond the endless intra-team Ferrari battle, which dominated the race.
Here, Sport Just Sport writer Ella Magyar gives her winners and losers from another exciting race of the 2026 season.
Winner – Kimi Antonelli
Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli dominates the story of the weekend.
His strong performance during Saturday’s qualifying session saw the 19-year-old take his first Grand Prix pole position, becoming the youngest driver to do so in F1 history.
Despite losing pole position to Lewis Hamilton on lap one, by lap two he was back in the lead.
Controlling the pace out front, team-mate George Russell was busy fighting the Ferrari duo and later had to work his way back up the order after a safety car on lap 10.
Russell had made his way into second place, but Antonelli had secured a seven-second gap ahead.
Antonelli managed this gap and, despite a severe lock-up with three laps to go costing him two seconds, he cruised home to secure his maiden victory in F1.
This victory made the Italian the second-youngest driver ever to win a grand prix.
Will Antonelli be a real title contender this year?
Loser – McLaren
The weekend started well for McLaren as, despite losing a place each in the sprint race from where they had qualified, the drivers managed to bring home a haul of eight points for the team.
Continuing in a positive direction, the McLaren duo managed to qualify in fifth and sixth for the main race, making them the best of the rest behind clear front-runners Mercedes and Ferrari.
Misfortune soon came their way in the shape of a double DNS (did not start) for the team – their first in two decades.
Lando Norris was unable to even make it out of the garage, as a technical issue was identified with his car.
Team-mate Oscar Piastri made it to the grid, but a separate technical issue with his car reared its head, and he was pushed back to the pit lane.
The double DNS cost the team both points in the championship and valuable data.
This was Norris’ first career DNS, but for Piastri, it was a disaster.
Having crashed during the reconnaissance lap in Australia a week earlier, Piastri has not completed a single grand prix lap this season.
It is looking more and more likely that the reigning champions will be unable to defend either of their 2025 championship titles.
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Winner – Alpine
After a disastrous 2025 campaign, Alpine’s full focus was put into the 2026 season, and this weekend showed it may start to pay dividends.
In Saturday’s qualifying session, Pierre Gasly made it into Q3 and qualified in seventh.
Team-mate Franco Colapinto narrowly missed out on Q3 by five thousandths of a second and qualified in 12th.
Both drivers had a good start to the race, running fifth and sixth until a safety car came out on lap 10 for a stricken Lance Stroll.
Gasly, on the medium tyre, pitted under the safety car like others on the same strategy and emerged in ninth place.
Colapinto, on the hard tyre and alternate strategy, held second for some time before ultimately dropping back a few places when the strategies started to play out.
Afterwards, Alpine’s battle was largely with Haas until Haas driver Esteban Ocon collided with Colapinto on lap 32.
The incident left Colapinto with damage and potentially ruined any chance of Colapinto climbing further up the order.
Despite this, Colapinto finished in 10th, securing his first points since Baku 2024.
Gasly finished in sixth, bringing home a double points score for the team – their first since Brazil 2024.
Loser – Red Bull
Red Bull’s weekend started on the back foot, with the sprint race bringing home no points for the team.
Qualifying did not exactly go to plan either, with Max Verstappen qualifying in eighth and Isack Hadjar behind in ninth.
Both cars were out-qualified by Gasly’s Alpine.
Things went from bad to worse at the race start.
Verstappen’s car bogged down off the start, as in the sprint race, and he haemorrhaged places, dropping him down to 16th.
Verstappen managed to climb his way back up the order to sixth before having to retire the car 10 laps before the end of the race due to a coolant issue with the energy recovery system.
Hadjar’s start was equally poor.
Though he got off the line better, Hadjar spun off dramatically on the first lap, requiring him to come into the pits for a tyre change on the same lap.
Although Hadjar managed a decent recovery drive to finish in eighth, Red Bull’s gremlins have well and truly exposed themselves.
With both cars suffering from set-up and balance issues, as evidenced by Hadjar’s bizarre spin and Verstappen’s comments across the last two weekends, Red Bull has a host of issues that need to be fixed if they are to be regular challengers.
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Winner – Cadillac
Cadillac’s weekend also began with troubles.
During Saturday’s sprint race, Valtteri Bottas had to retire due to a loss of power, and team-mate Sergio Perez ended up last of the classified finishers.
Qualifying was an improved showing from last weekend.
Though Perez qualified in 22nd and last, Bottas managed to out-qualify Lance Stroll, ending up 20th.
The race started poorly as the team-mates collided with each other.
Luckily, there was limited damage to the cars, and the Cadillac pair finished in 13th and 15th.
Whilst the finishing positions look more flattering than they are, considering only 15 cars finished the race, the fact that both Cadillacs managed to complete the entire race distance without any reliability gremlins is a huge achievement for the new team and will provide them with a lot of valuable data.
Loser – Aston Martin
The Chinese Grand Prix is another weekend to forget for the Aston Martin team.
Though it is unsurprising, considering the limited time for improvements between the first two races, this weekend was spectacularly bad for the team in the main race.
The sprint race was relatively positive for the team, considering where they currently are.
Both cars managed to complete all 19 laps of the race, finishing 17th and 18th ahead of Cadillac’s Perez in last place.
Qualifying was also a better showing than last weekend, as both cars were able to set a time this time, qualifying in 19th and 21st.
The start of the race also started positively for the team when Fernando Alonso made it up to 10th from 19th on the first lap.
However, Alonso was unable to keep this up, losing a handful of places.
The race took a turn for the worse when Lance Stroll had to pull over and retire from the race on lap 10 due to a battery issue.
Alonso spent most of his race running at the very back of the field, 30 seconds behind the driver in front, before he had to retire the car with 23 laps to go due to vibrations from the car, causing dangerous levels of discomfort and loss of feeling in his hands.
In the end, what little promise the weekend briefly showed quickly faded, leaving Aston Martin with less data and more questions.
As the paddock leaves Shanghai, the Chinese Grand Prix leaves behind a weekend full of drama, lessons, and momentum shifts.
MORE FROM ELLA MAGYAR: F1 analysis: Winners and losers from the 2026 Australian GP – Ferrari, Cadillac and more
SportJustSport writers