{"id":501545,"date":"2026-03-29T09:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T09:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/501545\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T09:35:08","slug":"kimi-antonelli-wins-japanese-gp-to-become-youngest-f1-title-leader-motorsports-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/501545\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli wins Japanese GP to become youngest F1 title leader | Motorsports News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 19-year-old Mercedes driver\u2019s historic championship accomplishment came after he won his second F1 race in a row.<\/p>\n

Published On 29 Mar 202629 Mar 2026<\/p>\n

Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes won the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday for his second straight victory as the 19-year-old Italian became the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the world championship standings.<\/p>\n

Antonelli took advantage of a mid-race safety car to leapfrog into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position at Suzuka and eventually led home McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

He whooped with delight as he crossed the line, telling his team, \u201cThe pace was unbelievable today.\u201d<\/p>\n

He leads the championship after three races, building on the first Grand Prix win of his career two weeks ago in China.<\/p>\n

George Russell of Mercedes, who started the day on top of the championship standings, finished fourth.<\/p>\n

Russell battled Piastri for the lead over the first half of the race but pitted just before the safety car to drop back out of contention for the win.<\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s world champion Lando Norris was fifth ahead of Ferrari\u2019s Lewis Hamilton and Alpine\u2019s Pierre Gasly.<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u2019s four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who had won in Japan for the past four years, was eighth after starting from 11th on the grid.<\/p>\n

\"KimiAntonelli leads during the Japanese Grand Prix [Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/AFP]Antonelli recovers from poor start<\/p>\n

Antonelli was in pole position for the second straight race, having become the youngest pole-sitter in F1 history in China.<\/p>\n

But the Italian had a shocking start, sinking to sixth by the first corner.<\/p>\n

Piastri took the early lead ahead of Leclerc, with Norris, Russell and Hamilton all overtaking Antonelli.<\/p>\n

Russell moved up the field to sit on Piastri\u2019s tail as the game of cat and mouse began.<\/p>\n

Antonelli also made up lost ground, but a crash from Haas driver Ollie Bearman brought out the safety car midway through the race.<\/p>\n

Bearman was limping badly as race marshals helped him off the track, and his team later said he had \u201ca right knee contusion\u201d.<\/p>\n

Antonelli dived into the pits moments after the safety car was deployed, a stroke of good luck that won him the race as he emerged at the head of the pack.<\/p>\n

Russell slid out of contention, first being overtaken by Hamilton before watching Leclerc go past.<\/p>\n

Antonelli increased his lead while Russell recovered, but Piastri held on to deny Mercedes a third successive one-two Grand Prix finish.<\/p>\n

Haas said initial X-rays showed Bearman had no fractures after his crash, which saw him hit the barrier at high speed.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old had moved up the field after starting from 18th on the grid.<\/p>\n

Formula One now takes an extended break until the Miami Grand Prix on May 3.<\/p>\n

The Bahrain and\u00a0Saudi Arabia races scheduled for April have been cancelled because of the war in the Middle East. The 19-year-old Mercedes driver\u2019s historic championship accomplishment came after he won his second F1 race in a row.<\/p>\n

\"KimiAntonelli crosses the finish line to win the Formula One Japanese Grand Prix [Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/AFP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 19-year-old Mercedes driver\u2019s historic championship accomplishment came after he won his second F1 race in a row.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1296,59,386,18733,50,217,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-501545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-asia-pacific","tag-gb","tag-japan","tag-motorsports","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}