The Japan Times - Mercedes' Russell wins 'pretty fun' Shanghai sprint from both Ferraris

Russell enjoyed a ding-dong battle in the opening laps with seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, as the pair traded places at the front several times.

Later he had to fend off the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc after a late safety car, with the Monegasque driver coming home second with Hamilton in third.

"It was pretty fun in the end, lots of strategy at play on how to do the overtakes," said Russell, who won the opening grand prix in Melbourne last weekend.

"It is not easy, I hope it was a fun race to watch. Usually the sprint races are pretty boring.

"I got everything under control, then the safety car, so really happy to get the win," added Russell, who leads the standings on 33 points, 11 ahead of his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli, who finished fifth.

"When we were battling, Lewis did an amazing job and caught me off guard. He has experience, I have a little bit to learn."

The safety car on lap 13 of the 19 saw the entire field dive into the pits for fresh tyres, with leader Russell emerging still in front.

Antonelli had been third at that point but served a 10-second penalty in the pit lane for causing an earlier collision.

- 'A good fight' -

World champion Lando Norris came fourth in his McLaren and his teammate Oscar Piastri sixth.

Liam Lawson in his RB and Oliver Bearman in the Haas were seventh and eighth respectively to round out the points scorers.

"I was managing quite a bit but I'm pretty happy with the race," said Leclerc.

"It's good to see our race pace is more similar to the Mercedes than our qualifying pace."

The Ferrari of Hamilton earlier had a brilliant launch off the start line, moving from fourth to second and then swapping the lead with Russell twice on the opening lap.

Russell and Hamilton traded places at the front multiple times in the opening five laps, with Leclerc hot on their heels.

Russell eventually began to pull away leaving the Ferrari pair to squabble for second with Leclerc just getting the better of Hamilton.

"It was a close battle at the beginning, their speed on the straight is a bit too much at the moment. I put up a good fight but killed my front tyre," said Hamilton, who won the sprint in Shanghai 12 months ago.

But it was another torrid session for four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who had a dreadful start from eighth on the grid dropping him to 13th.

The Red Bull driver fumed on Friday that the "whole day has been a disaster" and his mood was even worse after limping home ninth and out of the points.

"I have not a lot of words at the moment," said an angry Verstappen.

"To be honest, everything that could go wrong went wrong. The start of course is one problem that we have to fix, but then after that, the balance is all over the place.

"Some other bits on the car were not, I would say, well prepared. So, yeah, we just need to get our stuff together."

Qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix takes place later Saturday.

K.Yoshida--JT