Antonelli surges to victory in Japan, becomes youngest-ever championship leader at 19

Kimi Antonelli once again stamped his authority by winning the Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit on Sunday. In the process, the Italian becoming the youngest-ever championship leader after putting in a commanding drive to claim his second consecutive win from Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc following an earlier Safety Car.

“It feels pretty good,” said Antonelli. “Of course it’s still early days to think about the championship, but we’re on a good way. In the race, I had a terrible start, I just need to check what happened, but then I was lucky with the Safety Car to be in the lead. Then the pace was just incredible, and it was a really nice second stint. I felt very good with the car and very pleased with that,” he added.

Antonelli clinches pole position for Japanese Grand Prix ahead of Russell and Piastri

With George Russell struggling for performance and being forced to settle for fourth at the chequered flag, Antonelli now leads the standings for the first time by 9 points after the opening three Grands Prix of the season.

When the lights went out at the Suzuka Circuit, Piastri made a stunning start to seize the lead into Turn 1 while the Mercedes cars slipped backwards. The Silver Arrows pair soon embarked on a recovery drive, however, with George Russell going on to challenge the McLaren racer for the lead, though was unable to make a move stick.

Kimi Antonelli was joined on the podium by Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc on Sunday. Pics: formula1.com

As some drivers started to make their pit stops, including leaders Piastri and Russell, a heavy crash for Haas’ Ollie Bearman brought out the Safety Car on Lap 22, allowing Antonelli, who was yet to pit and had provisionally been in the lead, to visit the pits and reemerge in P1.

From there the youngster executed a smooth restart to hold onto P1 and build a significant gap up ahead, crossing the line with a margin of 13.722s over Piastri, with the win also moving him up into the lead of the Drivers’ Championship, making him the youngest driver in history to head the standings.

Piastri recorded his first race finish of the season in style, the Australian taking McLaren’s debut podium of the campaign with his P2 result, while Leclerc fended off a chasing Russell to seal the final spot on the rostrum in third.

This left Russell to settle for fourth, the Briton having earlier voiced his frustration at the timing of the Safety Car, while McLaren’s Lando Norris claimed fifth following a close scrap with Lewis Hamilton in the latter stages, the Ferrari man ending the event in sixth.

Pierre Gasly was a solid seventh for Alpine, the Frenchman having had to defend hard against a chasing Max Verstappen for much of the second half of the race. The Red Bull man finished just 0.337s behind in eighth, while Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson and Haas’ Esteban Ocon rounded out the top 10.

Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg just missed out on points in 11th, ahead of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar in 12th and the other Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto in 13th. Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad claimed 14th, ahead of the Williams of Carlos Sainz and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto in 15th and 16th respectively.

Sergio Perez was the lead Cadillac in P17, with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, the sister Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas and Williams’ Alex Albon, who recorded a total of six pit stops in the race, completing the classification.

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Two drivers retired from the event, with Lance Stroll forced to bring his Aston Martin back to the garage owing to a suspected water pressure issue. Bearman’s crash put him out of the running, though the Haas team fortunately later reported that the Briton had not suffered any fractures in the 50G incident.

Antonelli to focus on improving his starts

With the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia races not taking place in April, there’s a gap until the next race in Miami with teams set to bring significant upgrades to the American race.

Antonelli stated his focus would be on improving his starts, which have been sub-optimal compared with Mercedes’ rivals throughout 2026 so far.

“Luckily I’ve got three weeks so now I can practice some clutch drops just to get a better feel with it because definitely it has been a weak point so far this year and we need to improve that because you can easily win or lose races with that,” he said.