The box plot from the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix captures the competitive dynamics of the race, revealing Mercedes’ enormous advantage in race trim. F1Technical’s senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers his latest analysis.
Right at the top of the chart sit the two Mercedes drivers, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, whose lap‑time distributions confirm the W17’s dominance in race trim. Antonelli’s mean lap time of 96.66 seconds and median of 96.50 place him comfortably ahead of the field, while Russell follows with a mean of 96.95 and median of 96.91.
The difference can be associated with the period of several laps when the Briton was locked in a fight with the Ferrari drivers after the safety car restart.
Those numbers quantify exactly how Mercedes looked in the early laps: not necessarily sprinting away, but always operating at a baseline pace Ferrari couldn’t quite reach.
Ferrari’s strength after the safety‑car‑triggered pit stop is also reflected in the data. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton posted a mean of 97.15 and 97.10, respectively.
These values are about six tenths per lap slower than the Mercedes averages. Their box plots are tight, with narrow interquartile ranges, showing that Ferrari managed to bring the hard tyres into the operating window more quickly than Mercedes after the safety car restart.
But the decisive moment of the race — Mercedes’ resurgence around lap 32 — is written between the lines of the diagram. Antonelli’s box plot is not only lower but also noticeably narrower than Ferrari’s, indicating superior consistency.
Their whiskers, representing 99.3% of the normal distribution, extend less than those of Leclerc and Hamilton, meaning Antonelli and Russell produced fewer slow laps and fewer deviations.
Once the hard tyres switched on, the raw numbers show Mercedes operating in a different league: Antonelli’s median of 96.50 is nearly 0.8 seconds faster than Leclerc’s 97.31, and Russell’s 96.91 still gives him a solid 0.4‑second advantage. That statistical shift mirrors the on‑track moment when Mercedes began pulling away and reasserting control.
Behind the top four, the “Best‑Of‑The‑Rest” group — Gasly and Bearman — sits in the 97.78–97.89 mean range. They were quick enough to stay clear of the midfield but never close enough to trouble Ferrari.
How do teams compare to each other?
Mercedes’ advantage is unmistakable in the stint averages. Their lap‑time trace stays consistently low and stable from lap 12 to lap 54, showing virtually no degradation and no meaningful fluctuations. That level of control suggests they were operating comfortably within the car’s ideal window, never needing to push to maintain the fastest pace.
Ferrari, the closest challengers, sit at +0.64 on average. While that keeps them within sight, the gap is still large enough to be decisive over a long run. Their line shows more variation and a slightly higher baseline, indicating they could occasionally match Mercedes but couldn’t sustain that pace across the stint.
Behind the top two, the field stretches out quickly. Alpine at +1.32 and Haas at +1.43 form a competitive upper‑midfield group just over a second off Mercedes.
From there, the gaps widen: Racing Bulls (+1.81), Audi (+1.83), and Williams (+2.47) fall into a slower cluster roughly two seconds adrift. Cadillac, at +3.51, are isolated at the back, their deficit too large to factor into any meaningful strategic fight.
Overall, the numbers reveal a sharply tiered grid: Mercedes alone at the front, Ferrari chasing but not threatening, a small group fighting for best‑of‑the‑rest, and several teams simply trying to limit the damage. It’s the kind of spread that turns a Grand Prix into multiple parallel races — with Mercedes dominating the one that matters.
