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Formula OneAndrea Kimi Antonelli has become the youngest Formula One World Championship leader after the teenager won the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix. Fortunate Safety Car timing assisted the Italian to his victory after a sluggish start from pole position. The result might flatter Antonelli's race, with McLaren's Oscar Piastri looking likely for a shock result. Nonetheless, Mercedes now have three consecutive P1 finishes as the Silver Arrows continue to be the class of the field.
Despite the Mercedes dominance, this was not a 1-2 finish for the Brackley-based squad. George Russell had the early advantage between the two teammates. His timing for a pit stop to keep close with Piastri, however, cost him dearly. The Briton, who looked almost unopposed for the title after the opening round, now sits nine points behind Antonelli as F1 enters its surprise spring break.
Mercedes, however, did begin the race with another front-row lockout. Antonelli edged out Russell, who struggled throughout the Saturday Qualifying session. Yet it was Russell who was the quicker-starting car between the pair. Antonelli suffered with wheelspin as he tried to deploy power into his Medium Pirelli tyres, dropping to P6 by Turn 1. With Russell passed by two cars, too, the slow getaways for the championship-leading team again hindered their early-race chances.
Piastri led the way from P3, with Charles Leclerc in hot pursuit. The Australian has not raced a single Grand Prix lap in 2026 after two DNS (Did Not Start) rounds, and showed the world what they had been missing. Taking to the outside of the track and sweeping into Turn 1 saw the McLaren lead the Ferrari, and Lando Norris jumped Russell, too, by the time the pack reached the Esses.
Far from many expectations, this 53-lap race began as it continued, with a three-constructor battle for the podium. The fightback from the Mercedes duo began immediately. Antonelli sped by Lewis Hamilton with extra energy down the start-finish straight after the first tour, and Russell repeated that on Norris one lap later. While Antonelli's moves stalled a little from there, Russell soon got Leclerc for P2, too, and promptly began closing the gap to leader Piastri.
With the ease with which Russell dispatched Leclerc and Norris, things weren't looking good for Piastri. The Mercedes man dived to the inside of the Turn 16 chicane to take the lead. Piastri, however, was driving smart with the new F1 regulations. Using the run around 130R en route to the final chicane to recharge his battery allowed the Melbourne-born driver to fight back down the pit straight. The lead returned to McLaren, and it looked as though we had a race on our hands.
Antonelli also made a pass on a McLaren, this time Norris, into the chicane, grabbing P4 from the world champion. He repeated the move on Leclerc soon after, but the Monegasque driver echoed Piastri's efforts to repass on the main straight. Although Antonelli didn't make the move on track, the position would soon come his way as the pit stop window opened.
McLaren took the fight to Mercedes and stopped Piastri ahead of Russell to protect against any possible undercut to take the lead. Mercedes followed suit with Russell once they knew he would be clear of Max Verstappen after stopping. With Leclerc also switching his Pirelli tyres to the Hards, the lead fell to Antonelli, and it would be one he would retain thanks to an incident between Ollie Bearman and Franco Colapinto at Spoon.
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Recharging of Colapinto's Alpine car had the Argentine racer much slower than Bearman entering the double left-hander. An instinctive defensive move had the Haas move onto the grass to avoid contact, but Bearman lost all grip and smashed heavily into the outside barriers. Footage of the young British star saw him limping with help from a marshal, clearly in some pain after the incident.
Those who hadn't stopped jumped into the pit lane, with Antonelli and Hamilton benefiting most from the frontrunners. A well-timed restart from Antonelli kept him in P1, but Russell could not keep on Piastri's rear wing, with Hamilton passing his old teammate into Turn 1. Russell's tricky Sunday went from bad to worse as what seemed to be low energy deployment allowed Leclerc to pass, too.
Ferrari vs Ferrari fighting, a regular feature in the early part of this season, was the next entertainment piece. With Antonelli disappearing up the road and Piastri holding firm in P2, the battle for the final podium position was at stake between the two teammates. Millimetre-perfect battling followed, with Hamilton defending from Leclerc all across the track. Leclerc, though, hung on around the outside of Turn 1, and took P3 from the seven-time champion.
That move grabbed the podium position for Leclerc, but Hamilton soon dropped back. Russell stormed past him before a lockup at the chicane showed that he wasn't feeling too comfortable in his Ferrari. Norris, too, battled past the struggling Scuderia Ferrari after two attempts. Russell looked like he might also pass the lead Ferrari in the closing stages. Leclerc, however, repeated Piastri's earlier move of allowing a pass out of 130R to get more power down the start-finish straight to remain third.
Out front, though, Antonelli crossed the line to lead the championship, taking P1 from Russell. Piastri and Leclerc joined the teenager on the podium after hard-fought Sunday drives, with the British trio of Russell, Norris, and Hamilton rounding out the top six. With the Middle Eastern races being cancelled, there are now four F1-free weekends before racing resumes in Miami. Unlike the summer break, though, car development is allowed, and we could see quite a difference in performance when F1 hits Florida at the start of May.
