(Photo: Jiri Krenek / ACTIVEPICTURES / Mercedes AMG F1)

F1 Review: Kimi Antonelli Surges To First F1 Win With Chinese GP Victory

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Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli shrugged off a slow start and a brief Ferrari challenge to win the Heineken Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday (March 15th), pocketing his first Formula 1 win in a race absent of both McLaren’s. Antonelli gave himself a scare with a lock-up into Turn 1 with three laps left, but his lead was so massive it didn’t matter.   

After becoming F1’s youngest pole-sitter a day earlier, the Italian prodigy proved it wasn’t a fluke and won going away, beating teammate George Russell, who never challenged for the win, by over five seconds.

“I’m speechless,” Antonelli said after the race. “I’m about to cry, to be honest. Thank you so much to my team, because they helped me to achieve this dream.

“I’m super happy. I said on Saturday 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 the flat spot. It was a good race.”

Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, a six-time winner at China for Mercedes, held off teammate Charles Leclerc for third and finally posted his first podium in a Ferrari.  

 

The rest of the top 10 was filled by mid-pack drivers who benefitted from the absence of the two McLarens, as well as the Williams of Alex Albon and the Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto, none of which started the race with mechanical issues. 

Haas Racing’s Oliver Bearman finished fifth, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly took sixth, while Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson came home seventh. Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar was eighth, giving RB their only race points in the wake of Max Verstappen’s late retirement, and Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto closed out the points in ninth and 10th, respectively. It was Colapinto’s first point with Alpine.

In the driver standings, Russell leads with 51 points, with Antonelli a close second with 47, with Leclerc in third with 34 points, one ahead of Hamilton. 

In the constructors standings, Mercedes widened their edge over Ferrari and now lead 98 to 67. Despite going scoreless in the race, McLaren maintained third and has 18 points.

The Race

Ferrari again proved their race starts are untouchable, as Hamilton bolted into the lead into Turn 1, passing both Antonelli and Russell. Hamilton rocketed from third on the grid to take the lead, with Russell dropping to fourth. 

Antonelli wasted no time in regaining the lead and easily passed Hamilton on lap 3, again displaying the Mercedes’ pace advantage. While it lasted, the battle between the 41-year-old Hamilton and the 19-year-old prodigy that replaced him was a sublime look at F1’s past and future. 

A lap 10 safety car, deployed for Lance Stroll’s stalled Aston Martin, proved that Ferrari learned a lesson from their strategy disaster in Australia and followed Mercedes into the pits. The top four cars swapped their medium tires for hard sets, and all made those tires last until the end. 

Antonelli pulled away as the Ferraris battled each other with Russell behind, unable to get by and challenge Antonelli. Russell eventually cleared the Ferraris but could get nowhere near his teammate. What started as a two-team battle quickly became a Mercedes runaway.

Meanwhile, Red Bull’s Verstappen again struggled at the start and dug himself a hole that his RB didn’t have the performance to dig him out of. Instead of battling for the win, Verstappen found himself scrapping with the likes of Gasly and Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad for a few points. But the Dutchman’s day ended abruptly when he was forced to retire his car 12 laps from the end.   

While Antonelli was cruising and wondering where the competition was, Hamilton and Leclerc were entertaining viewers with a back-and-forth battle that likely had their team a collective nervous wreck, as the two nearly made contact on several occasions while fighting for the final spot on the podium. 

The Ferrari duel was the lone drama up front in the race’s latter stages, until Antonelli locked his brakes in Turn 14 with three laps left. Antonelli coolly and calmly recovered, never giving Russell a sniff of the lead.

Antonelli took the checkered flag with a five-second cushion over Russell, with Hamilton third, over 25 seconds back of Antonelli.

The Bad

Verstappen has been a vocal critic of F1’s new regulations, and has called his Red Bull “undriveable” and “not fun to drive.” The four-time world champion seems disinterested, and I can totally relate, because that’s exactly the way I feel when I hear an F1 driver whine about his car.

I think Rihanna said it best when she sang “Shut Up And Drive.” Wasn’t it just a few years ago that Verstappen was complaining that he was bored with racing because his Red Bull was too good? I think Justin Timberlake said it best when he crooned “Cry Me A River.”

Don’t get me wrong. Verstappen is right about his car—it’s not the car a multiple-time world champion deserves. But did you hear Lewis Hamilton bitching about his under-performing Ferrari last season? Yeah, you did, almost incessantly. You also heard Hamilton complaining about his Mercedes in his final year with the team. Hamilton appears to be happy with the current state of Ferrari, but it’s obvious he would have been much better off dealing with a tough year or two and remaining with Mercedes. 

He won’t admit it, but Hamilton is kicking himself for leaving Mercedes for what he thought would be greener pastures in Ferrari red. Can you imagine Hamilton in this year’s Mercedes, at a circuit at which he’s dominated? He may have won by a minute.

The motto for Verstappen and Hamilton to live by, sang distinctly by Guns ‘N Roses lead singer Axl Rose, would be, “All you need is just a little patience.” Also, let that be the only advice and/or guidance you accept from Rose. 

Mechanical issues prevented the McLaren’s of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri from even starting the race. Last week in Australia, Piastri dramatically crashed on his reconnaissance lap and missed the race entirely. Two races into the season, and Piastri has completed zero race laps. After the Aussies’ blunder Down Under, I doubt McLaren thought it could get worse. But McLaren apparently said to itself, “Hold my papaya-infused pale ale.”

And the cars of Norris and Piastri had different mechanical issues, which seems like twice as much trouble as opposed to the two cars having the same issue.  

McLaren’s issues are a testament to the deficit in performance they face when compared to the front-running Mercedes team. I don’t think anyone doubts that McLaren can diagnose and solve their issues, and eventually challenge Mercedes for wins. But by then (and after a race in which they couldn’t even start one car, that could be August), it will be too late. I know it’s early, but given what we’ve seen (or not seen) from the team so far, McLaren has been eliminated from the drivers and constructors championship contention. Unless they are sitting on some phenomenal, and dare I say, downright magical, upgrades.   

The Cadillacs of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas made contact on lap 6, something that should not happen with a brand new team that is not even challenging for points. Maybe the two were cosplaying as Mercedes’ teammates of a decade ago, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, if Rosberg and Hamilton were wrecking each other in pursuit of a 15th-place finish? Nah, that comparison doesn’t fly, because Perez actually apologized for causing the incident. For Hamilton and Rosberg, there actually is an “I” in “Team,” but there’s certainly no “I” in “I’m sorry.”  

Luckily, both Bottas and Perez completed the race, one lap down in 13th and 15th, respectively. For Cadillac, it’s important that Bottas and Perez be “classified” as good teammates, and not classified as huge A-holes, like Hamilton and Rosberg at the time.

The Good

Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli won the pole on Saturday (March 14th) and in doing so became the youngest F1 polesitter ever. The 19-year-old Italian topped Sebastian Vettel’s record, set as a 21 year old at the Italian Grand Prix in 2008. Antonelli also became the youngest-looking F1 polesitter ever, at 13. 

Then, in Sunday’s race, Antonelli was just as dominant, winning easily. When a teenager dominates his elders like this, I guess you’d have to label it a “Teen Beat,” which just so happens to be a magazine of which Antonelli would have adorned the cover, if that magazine still existed. 

The Ferraris of Hamilton and Leclerc are very evenly matched, and some of the best racing we’ve seen has been between the two, neither of which is willing to give an inch.

Both are driving their Ferraris to the edge, and neither wants to be the driver who finishes behind the other. Their driving has been brilliant, and I’m not sure the Hamilton vs Leclerc battles could be any more entertaining.

Unless……..the two wreck each other in a future race. That disastrous scenario seems bound to happen, not just because of the knife-edge racing we’ve already seen between Hamilton and Leclerc, but because, as stated before, their cars are on the same performance level, so they’re going to be racing each other often. And their will to win, not just races, but individual battles, is so strong.  

It’s not a matter of if the wreck will happen, it’s when. And when it does, I expect Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur to handle it with his usual decisiveness and aplomb and do absolutely nothing to address the situation.   

Grid Walk Moments

Jolyon Palmer interviewed one person on his “Grid Walk,” and that was Oscar Piastri’s race engineer, Tom Stallard, who, at the time, didn’t know that Piastri would not be starting the race, but he had to have some idea. Didn’t he? 

Stallard appeared to be calm, but given what was happening around him (Lando Norris’ McLaren was already absent from the grid, and Piastri’s was obviously compromised in some way), he had to be a nervous wreck inside. Stallard was, however, gracious enough to answer Palmer’s inquiries. In other words, lie to us and say Piastri’s car was good to go.

McLaren’s total absence from the race was music to the ears of all teams, especially Williams and Alpine. Carlos Sainz brought his Williams home in ninth, with Alpine’s Franco Colapinto taking 10th. Had McLaren been able to compete, they certainly would have finished in the top 10, assuming they suffered no mechanical issues. That would have pushed Sainz and Colapinto out of the points.

Other beneficiaries of McLaren’s absence? Everyone! Because Zak Brown was not in China, we didn’t have to hear from the McLaren CEO a long-winded, overly-positive response about how McLaren would “learn from this” and return “energized and hungry” for the Japanese Grand Prix on March 29.    

Apple TV Coverage Critique

F1 TV’s pre-race crew of Betty Glover, Jolyon Palmer, and Ruth Buscombe is spot on, with Palmer and Buscombe providing great insight, Palmer as a former driver and Buscombe as a race strategist with Ferrari and Haas. And Glover maintains the flow and continuity as a hostess. The team has great chemistry.

I could go all day with platitudes and compliments about the F1 TV team, but the thing I absolutely love the most about it is the lack of Danica Patrick.

The Driver

Most everyone is aware of Kimi Antonelli’s talent. Toto Wolff and Mercedes certainly were when they tabbed the Italian to replace the legendary Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. The talent was evident, but in China, Antonelli announced himself, loudly, as a legitimate player in the world championship battle. 

Antonelli had the best car, and did what you’re supposed to do when you have the best car, and that’s win the race. He did prove his mettle by overcoming a few hurdles, like a poor start, challenges from the pesky Ferraris, and the late lock-up.

The veteran George Russell and his youthful sidekick Antonelli give Mercedes an incredible 1-2 punch, and with a car that seems unchallenged, at least for the time being, either driver can win the championship. Certainly, Russell is still the favorite, but after Antonelli’s impressive win, Russell is less of a favorite than he previously was.


The Results (Heineken Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai International Circuit

Pos.No.DriverTeamLapsTime / RetiredPts.
112Kimi AntonelliMercedes561:33:15.60725
263George RussellMercedes56+5.515s18
344Lewis HamiltonFerrari56+25.267s15
416Charles LeclercFerrari56+28.894s12
587Oliver BearmanHaas F1 Team56+57.268s10
610Pierre GaslyAlpine56+59.647s8
730Liam LawsonRacing Bulls56+80.588s6
86Isack HadjarRed Bull Racing56+87.247s4
955Carlos SainzWilliams55+1 lap2
1043Franco ColapintoAlpine55+1 lap1
1127Nico HulkenbergAudi55+1 lap0
1241Arvid LindbladRacing Bulls55+1 lap0
1377Valtteri BottasCadillac55+1 lap0
1431Esteban OconHaas F1 Team55+1 lap0
1511Sergio PerezCadillac55+1 lap0
NC3Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing45DNF0
NC14Fernando AlonsoAston Martin32DNF0
NC18Lance StrollAston Martin9DNF0
NC81Oscar PiastriMcLaren0DNS0
NC1Lando NorrisMcLaren0DNS0
NC5Gabriel BortoletoAudi0DNS0
NC23Alexander AlbonWilliams0DNS0
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2 thoughts on “F1 Review: Kimi Antonelli Surges To First F1 Win With Chinese GP Victory”

  1. It was going to be either Kimi or George. The Ferrari’s were too busy racing each other to chase the Mercede’s down. It’s not like McLaren was there to put up a fight. Toto did his homework. Kimi’s great but it definitely is the car now. If there was ever a question before, it’s no longer a question now.

    • I agree. Mercedes is so far ahead now, I can only hope McLaren and Red Bull have some amazing upgrades forthcoming. Otherwise, it’s going to be a boring season.

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