Haas driver Oliver Bearman of Britain steers his car during the Sprint Race of the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit, in Shanghai, China, Saturday, March 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

CHINA — Anyone walking by the Formula 1 (F1) pitlane on Friday morning would’ve heard the song “Macarena” blaring from the Ferrari garage. This set the stage for a host of surprises throughout the weekend, many of which I’ll relay here.

1. Starting with that infectious song people can’t help but dance to, why would Ferrari have the “Macarena” blasting away? The innovative rear wing they introduced on the last day of the Bahrain preseason testing debuted on a race weekend in China.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari driver, calls it the “flip flop” wing, but it is more popularly nicknamed the “Macarena” wing because of the hand motions in the song mimicking the way the wing flips. Having the explanation honestly doesn’t lessen the surprise they would choose to turn the volume up to 11 on it.

2. This was a sprint race weekend for F1, meaning instead of three practice sessions, qualifying, and the race, the teams have a practice session, sprint qualifying, the sprint race, qualifying, and the feature race. With only one practice session so early into a new era of car, teams should be focused on learning as much as they can about how their car will handle on this specific track.

Ferrari was again the source of surprise as their two cars took the track for sprint qualifying without the “Macarena” wing. Hamilton had a dangerous spin that could’ve been the result of bad timing with his “flip flop,” or “Macarena,” wing and they seemed to lose time to the Mercedes compared to Australia, so it doesn’t seem like it was a bad idea to remove it. However, with such limited time on offer, many were scratching their heads whey they chose this weekend to debut the oddly named wing.

3. George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the two Mercedes drivers, qualified in first and second place for the sprint race which, given their pace so far, is no surprise. What was surprising at the start of the sprint race was just how terrible of a start Antonelli had. It looked like he was driving in slow motion compared to those around him, and he sunk down to eighth by the first corner.

Before the first lap was done, Antonelli also ran into the side of Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar which Antonelli was found at fault for and given a 10-second penalty. Still, he surprised many by making his way up to fifth place by the end of the sprint race netting four points for his championship aspirations.

4. In qualifying for the feature race, Russell looked dominant again until his car had some electronic issues at the end of the second session. While he still easily made the third session based on his earlier lap time, Russell ground to a halt on track when he first went out in that final grouping. After finally getting his car moving again, he limped back to the pits and the mechanics tried resetting his electronics.

With less than three minutes to go, he made it back out to the track and had time to set one lap time. He managed to drive quick enough to secure second place, and that meant Antonelli locked in pole position. This marked his first F1 pole, making him the youngest ever and, surprisingly, the first teenager to earn that grid spot in F1 history.

5. Before the race began on Sunday afternoon in China, McLaren mechanics were feverishly working on Norris’ car. Unable to get it running, he had no choice but to start from pit lane and abandon his sixth-place starting position.

Piastri was relieved he got his car safely to the grid in China after an accident on his way to the grid last week meant he did not start his home race in Australia. The relief was quickly replaced with trepidation as mechanics wheeled his car back to the garage mere minutes before the start of the race. He, like Norris, would have to start from the pit lane.

Surprisingly for the McLaren duo, their mechanics could not excise the gremlins in the electronics of their cars and neither car was able to start the race. Bad luck also hit Williams driver Alex Albon and Audi driver Gabriel Bortoleto who were also out of the race before it even began.

6. Antonelli, starting from pole, finally had a decent start to a race this season, and he cut across the track to block his teammate Russell from challenging him. This allowed Hamilton to drive around the outside and take the lead.

Ferrari has shown an aptitude for quick starts as Charles Leclerc made his way into the lead of the race in Australia and Hamilton was able to pip Russell for the lead in the sprint race. In the previous races, there was a lengthy back-and-forth race between the cars which was exciting to watch.

Surprisingly, Antonelli and Russell both blasted by the Ferrari cars in the first few laps of the race and never looked back. Banners throughout the racetrack in China proclaimed this as the year of the horse. Apparently that wasn’t prophetic for the prancing horses of Ferrari as this race showed they still have a long way to go if they want to dethrone Mercedes this season.

7. While Antonelli impressed everyone with his pole position drive in qualifying, that doesn’t necessarily mean he was locked in for a race win. The young man has a huge weight on his shoulders as he was pushed through the lower divisions of racing at an accelerated pace and lacked the championships many other drivers obtain on their way to an F1 drive. Also, the last time an Italian driver won a race in F1 was in 2006 before Antonelli was even born.

From start to finish, Antonelli turned in an impressive drive to become the 116th driver to win an F1 race. When he was interviewed after the race, he only managed a few words before he had to stop with emotions overcoming him and tears of joy taking over.

After collecting himself, he thanked everyone from his family to his team, to his teammate, to Hamilton who he was sharing the podium with and whose seat he took over at Mercedes. Antonelli also added in a surprisingly delightful comment, “I’m allowed to cry, to be honest.”

8. All the previous surprising events led to an iconic podium celebration. The next generation of drivers is represented with Antonelli winning. Russell, in second place, is part of the current pique generation and expected still to drive away with the championship this year. Hamilton gets his first podium in Ferrari red and represents the old guard in the sport.

The winning team gets to send up a representative to the podium, and Mercedes chose Peter Bonnington. He is currently Antonelli’s race engineer and was long time race engineer to Hamilton when the driver won six of his seven championships with that team.

While Mercedes looks set to continue dominating F1 under the current ruleset, Antonelli showed there are still two viable winners. To see who wins the next race in Japan, tune in on Sunday, March 29, at 1 a.m. Eastern.