Kimi Antonelli converted pole position at the Chinese Grand Prix into his first Formula 1 victory to beat team-mate George Russell, as Lewis Hamilton secured his first Ferrari podium.
Antonelli had to contend with a typically fast start from the two Ferraris but, helpfully, did not get bogged down himself; this ensured that, although the Italian lost the lead into Turn 1 to Hamilton, he was able to stay ahead of Charles Leclerc.
The Bologna-born teen continued to build a gap through the race that eventually proved unassailable, and survived one shaky moment towards the end as he sustained a lock-up at Turn 14 with three laps remaining.
In preserving second at the start, it meant that Antonelli was able to pull ahead of Hamilton on the following lap, sinking his overtake mode into a move at Turn 14 to reclaim the lead.
From here, Antonelli appeared to be relatively comfortable; a battle flared between the two Ferraris and Russell in the early stages, leaving the Italian free to build a gap.
Although it appeared that this would be interrupted by a 10th-lap safety car, produced by Lance Stroll’s stoppage as the Aston Martin suffered a suspected battery issue, Antonelli’s cause was helped movements in the pitlane.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Sona Maleterova / Getty Images
After stopping for hard tyres, Antonelli was also joined in the pitlane by the other medium-tyre runners within the top 10; this shuffled the hard-shod Franco Colapinto and Esteban Ocon ahead of the Ferraris and Russell for the restart.
This kept Antonelli free of an attack into Turn 1, although Hamilton’s quick fire-up of the hard tyre ensured that the Briton quickly rifled through the un-stopped cars ahead and got within half a second of his Mercedes successor.
Yet, Antonelli managed to find some pace after a couple of laps and started to extend his lead – one that had begun to swell as the Ferraris and Russell battled over second in a pass and re-pass battle. As Hamilton and Leclerc duelled, Russell picked them off one at a time shortly after Leclerc had made a successful play for second.
Russell attempted to chase after his teenage team-mate, but Antonelli’s gap at this stage was well over seven seconds – and this even rose to beyond nine seconds – before “giving myself a heart-attack” with a lock-up at Turn 14.
With a message from engineer Pete Bonnington to “bring it home”, Antonelli crossed the line with a 5.5-second winning margin over his team-mate.
Hamilton won out in a box-office battle between the Ferraris, with wheel-to-wheel racing throughout. This was effectively concluded on the 40th lap, when Hamilton fired his car up the inside at Turn 1 and held the line into Turn 3.
Leclerc thus finished fourth, 28s up the road from Haas’ Ollie Bearman. Embroiled in an early battle with his team-mate Esteban Ocon and the two Alpines, Bearman tapped into a rich vein of pace from his car once he’d been able to clear Colapinto.
Oliver Bearman, Haas F1 Team
Photo by: Lintao Zhang / LAT Images via Getty Images
Gasly added to Alpine’s tally with sixth, picking up a place when Max Verstappen retired with a power unit issue, which moved Liam Lawson up to seventh after the New Zealander also batted away an assault from Isack Hadjar.
Hadjar had locked up his wheels at Turn 13 while battling against Bearman and had to stop at the end of the first lap, but recovered to collect his first points at Red Bull.
Carlos Sainz picked up Williams’ first points of the year with ninth, keeping Colapinto at arm’s length as the Argentine picked up his first point for Alpine.
Colapinto pitted later into the race and came out ahead of the similarly late-stopping Ocon; the two made contact as Colapinto took a wider approach into Turn 3, and Ocon attempted to dive down the inside as the Alpine turned in. Ocon immediately accepted the blame for the incident, and also picked up a 10-second penalty for causing a collision.
Nico Hulkenberg and Arvid Lindblad factored in the battle for points but just missed out on the top 10, as Valtteri Bottas was classified ahead of Ocon and Sergio Perez to record Cadillac’s highest finish so far.
F1 Chinese Grand Prix race results
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– The Autosport.com Team
