Ollie Bearman admits surprise after strong 2026 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying

Ollie Bearman admits he ‘was not expecting to be in the fight’ for points in Saturday’s Sprint in China, with the Haas driver set to start the 19-lap dash from ninth.

The Briton showed consistent pace throughout Friday’s Sprint Qualifying at the Shanghai International Circuit, having finished seventh in the single, one-hour practice session before then advancing to SQ3.

“We showed really good pace already from lap one of FP1 and we were able to build on that and go forward,” he said after the session.

“It was a tough session, the balance was a bit on edge and difficult to put the lap together but we got there in the end and happy with P9 today.”

Bearman will start directly behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and admits that points in Saturday’s Sprint, which are awarded to the top eight finishers, is a realistic goal.

“On the face of it, I’m quite impressed and surprised by the gap to the leaders,” he added, having finished seventh at the opening round in Australia last weekend.

“We seem to have closed it a little bit compared to last week, and honestly prior to the weekend, I was not expecting to be in the fight for the top eight because we expected the four teams to be so far ahead.

“At the end, that was not really the case and Red Bull don’t seem to have incredible pace, and it looks like if we get everything right tomorrow we can actually score some points, and then obviously in the race on Sunday, that’s where it gets serious.”

Haas team mate Esteban Ocon just missed out on SQ3 in 12th, but was left frustrated by the performance of his car on Friday.

“Not really pleased, we can’t be pleased with that,” he said. “We are working hard to obviously get the car where we want it to be and I think that was slightly better from FP1 to now.

“I think there are still quite a few things that we need to obviously investigate to get it better for tomorrow. There is potential that we can get it better so we need to try and obviously get the maximum out of it tomorrow and hopefully get on top of our issues.”