Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings.
The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell.
Photo: Reuters
Mercedes are struggling to contain the excitement building around their young driver, even if Antonelli said he was “not thinking too much about the championship.”
“Of course it’s great, but it’s still a long way to go and I need to keep raising the bar, because George is very quick,” he said. “For sure he’s going to be back at his usual level and also competitors will eventually get closer.”
Antonelli led home Piastri by 13.722 seconds, with Leclerc a further 1.548 seconds back in third.
Photo: AFP
Russell finished fourth to drop to second in the championship standings on 63 points. Leclerc is third on 49.
Russell battled Piastri for the lead over the first half of the race, but pitted just before the safety car which dropped him out of contention for the win.
Piastri secured second in his first grand prix start of the season, after crashing on his way to the grid in the opener in Australia and missing the race in China because of a technical problem.
Piastri led for the first half of the race before the safety car gave Antonelli his chance.
“It would have been really interesting to see what would have happened without that,” Piastri said. “A shame that we never got to see what would have happened, but I think for us to be disappointed at this point about finishing second is a pretty good place to be.”
Meanwhile, Williams driver Carlos Sainz said Oliver Bearman’s crash yesterday had been an accident waiting to happen, and that F1 and the FIA must listen to calls for change.
Bearman’s Haas hit the barriers with a force of 50G at Spoon corner after approaching Franco Colapinto’s Alpine with a significant speed differential between the cars, the US-owned team said.
As the Haas swerved left to avoid contact, the car went onto the grass and through a marker board as the 20-year-old lost control at 308kph with the safety car then deployed in a key moment of the race.
Bearman, who was seen limping after getting out of the car, escaped without broken bones, but had a right knee contusion from the impact, Haas said.
Such speed differences on track have been highlighted as a consequence of the sport’s new engine era and regulations and drivers’ need to manage an increased electrical element.
Spaniard Sainz, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, said drivers had feared just such an accident and called on the FIA to act.
“We’ve been warning them about this happening, this kind of closing speeds and this kind of accidents were always going to happen,” he said. “I’m not very happy with what we’ve had up until now. Hopefully we come up with a better solution that doesn’t create these massive closing speeds and [produces] a safer way of going racing.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
The Taoyuan Pauian Pilots on Sunday fell short in their bid for a first East Asia Super League (EASL) title after a 90-81 loss to Japan’s Utsunomiya Brex in Macau. The defeat marked the second straight year the defending P.League+ champions missed out on the EASL crown, but they remain the first team to reach back-to-back championship games in the league’s three-year history. The outcome was largely decided by long-range shooting. The Pilots struggled from beyond the arc, hitting just five of 20 attempts, while the Brex converted 19 three-pointers, shooting 46.3 percent from long range. Seven of the eight Brex players
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team
RSS