Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber began the Chinese Grand Prix weekend with a productive Friday, completing a smooth Free Practice session followed by the first Sprint Qualifying of the season.

Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto went through their scheduled run plans during practice, focusing on data collection and initial setup work for the Shanghai International Circuit. In the afternoon's Sprint Qualifying, Gabriel progressed into SQ2 and secured P14 for tomorrow's Sprint, while Nico was unable to improve on his final lap in SQ1 and will line up in P19.

Beat Zehnder, Director Signature Programs & Operations: "Gabriel did a good job in the only practice session, learning a track he had never raced on before and making steady improvements throughout the session, as well as in SQ1. It was a really good step for him, and a good performance today. Nico was also looking strong, confirming his promising practice showing, and was on course to progress, but we weren't able to keep up the same performance in the final sector, when the tyres became a bit too hot, and the couple of tenths he lost were enough not to make the cut. It's very tight out there and this result shows just how every detail has to be there if you want to achieve a good result. We will now prepare for tomorrow's Sprint, as well as make use of the knowledge we gained today to prepare the main Qualifying session."

Nico Hulkenberg: "Unfortunately, it was a short Sprint Qualifying session for me. I think the first lap looked promising, but on the second run, many drivers managed to improve their lap times, whereas we didn't. We'll need to look into the data to understand what happened and how we can make further gains. This morning in free practice my lap looked pretty competitive, but for some reason, we weren't able to replicate that performance in this afternoon's session."

Gabriel Bortoleto: "It's been an encouraging start to the weekend, and a solid sprint qualifying session overall. SQ1 went well, and in SQ2, I gave it everything, but closing the six-tenths gap to SQ3 was always going to be a challenge - I am still satisfied with the result we brought home. The windy conditions made it tricky at times, but overall, I'm happy with the progress made throughout the day. Now, the focus shifts on tomorrow, with the Sprint, first, and the main qualifying; we'll keep pushing to make the most of every opportunity."

Check out our Friday gallery from Shanghai here.