Sophomore driver Kimi Antonelli delivered a cool and controlled performance in the Chinese Grand Prix to become F1’s second-youngest race winner and lead Mercedes to back-to-back 1-2 finishes to start the 2026 season.
The young Italian overcame an early challenge from Ferrari before managing the race from the front to take his first F1 win, the first for an Italian since Giancarlo Fisichella won the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix five months before Antonelli’s birth.
“I’m speechless. I’m about to cry to be honest, but thank you so much to my team because they helped me to achieve this dream,” said an emotional Antonelli as the tears started flowing during the post-race TV interview. “I said yesterday that I really wanted to bring Italy back on top and we did today. Even though I gave myself a little bit of a heart attack towards the end with a flat spot.”
The flat spot came with three laps to go, when Antonelli locked up the brakes at the end of the long straight, running off the track.
“There’s so many [lessons] that I’ve learned, but first of all it’s never to relax too much – today at the end I opened the room for mistakes and the mistake happened,” he continued. “I just need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
On Saturday, Antonelli set the record as the youngest polesitter in F1 history, eclipsing the previous mark held by four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel by almost 18 months.
In the end, Antonelli crossed the line 5.515 seconds ahead of teammate George Russell, with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton 19.752 seconds behind in third. Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari fourth, while Oliver Bearman rounded out the top-five in the Haas.
The win put Antonelli four points behind teammate Russell’s 51 after two weekends, followed by Leclerc in third with 34, Hamilton fourth with 33 and Bearman fifth with 17. Mercedes’ excellent start puts it first in constructor points with 98; Ferrari lies second with 67 and McLaren third with 18.
Russell worked hard for his runner-up finish, overcoming a poor start and a pair of pesky Ferraris to get to the second step on the podium.
“Really special day for Kimi, so huge congratulations to him – it’s obviously a day he’s going to remember forever,” said Russell, who won Saturday’s Sprint race, with Leclerc second and Hamilton third. “The Ferraris made our life very difficult once again. If I wasn’t trying to win the race, I’d have been enjoying the battle, but obviously watching Kimi pull away during those points it was a little bit annoying. Ferrari definitely very quick; they’re quicker in the corners than us, slower than us on the straight, so it just made it a little bit challenging. And when you’re trying to get past two of them at the same point, that wasn’t straightforward.”
The two Ferraris continued with the rocket starts seen in Australia, with Hamilton streaking into the lead off the line from third on the grid, while Leclerc tried to make it a scarlet 1-2 but only managed to get to third behind Antonelli and ahead of Russell, who lined up second. While Antonelli took the lead from Hamilton on Lap 2, Russell got by both Ferraris in short order to restore a Mercedes 1-2 by Lap 4.
Australian Grand Prix winner Russell then struggled on an early restart, following a safety car caused by the stricken Aston Martin of Lance Stroll at Turn 1, and found himself behind the two Ferraris again.
Fortunately for Russell, Hamilton and Leclerc seemed more interested in battling each other than working together to keep the Mercedes behind. That fight allowed Antonelli to build a seven-second lead by Lap 30, when Russell finally got past into second. From there, the two Mercedes built a gap while the Ferraris continued to squabble over the final podium place. Hamilton came out on top and claimed his first in a full grand prix with the Scuderia.
“For me, I started this voyage and this dream of moving to Ferrari and being on the top step with them, and this podium has taken longer than I had hoped,” said Hamilton. “I’ve been pushing for a podium – it’s the hardest thing just to get a podium compared to a lot through my career and it was the biggest challenge to get that, and I just had to bide my time.”
The poor start that plagued Max Verstappen in the season opener in Australia continued in China when the four-time world champion was passed by a gaggle of cars and ended up fighting for last at Turn 1, despite starting eighth. Verstappen recovered and climbed back up the timesheets only to retire on Lap 46 with a cooling issue.
The teething troubles with the new regulations saw the McLarens of reigning world champion Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri failing to make it to the grid due to power unit electrical faults. An undisclosed “technical issue” also kept the Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto from starting the race, while a hydraulic issue meant that the Williams driven by Alex Albon also retired in the garage.
As for the Canadian team, Fernando Alonso’s race ended in the Aston Martin garage on Lap 35 after Stroll retired early.
Meanwhile, F1 dropped both the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix from the 2026 calendar due to the ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf. Neither April race will be replaced, reducing 2026 to a 22-race season and leaving a five-week gap between the March 29 Japanese Grand Prix and the Miami Grand Prix on May 3.
The Canadian Grand Prix now becomes the fifth race of the 2026 season on May 24.
Discussion about this post