Flawed F1 exposed again at Suzuka, but searing Antonelli would win in any era

F1
Mark Hughes
March 30, 2026

Kimi Antonelli looked like he'd have blasted to victory in the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix, no matter what rules F1 was racing under, says Mark Hughes. However, the result was once again overshadowed by the shortcomings of the series' new regulations

Charles Leclerc watches Kimi Antonelli celebrating Japanese GP victory on the F1 podium

Kimi Antonelli got a lucky break with the safety car, but was on race-winning pace in any event

Grand Prix Photo

Mark Hughes
March 30, 2026

The complications to racing under the ’26 regulations around Suzuka were greater even than those seen at the first two events. But they were only tangentially related to Kimi Antonelli’s second grand prix victory, one which makes him the youngest leader of the world championship in the sport’s history, at 19 years, 215 days.

The Mercedes driver won the Japanese Grand Prix through a combination of searing pace and a lucky break with the timing of a safety car. This wiped out the problems he had created for himself with too sudden a clutch drop at the start, which had converted his pole to sixth place within a few seconds of the gantry lights going out.

Antonelli’s pace suggests he may have won regardless. But the new regs did play a part in how he won. It was the new regs which created the massive speed difference between Franco Colapinto’s Alpine in 13th and the chasing Haas of Oliver Bearman on the 20th lap as they approached Spoon turn. The Alpine’s power unit suddenly reverted to ICE only, minus the 470bhp of electrical charge and with Bearman at over 170mph on full deployment he was suddenly confronted with a car mid-kink doing around 30mph less. In taking immediate evasive action to avoid ploughing into the back of Colapinto, Bearman was on the grass and spinning, hitting the barriers with a 50g impact.

It was that accident which created the safety car just after Oscar Piastri, George Russell and Charles Leclerc had pitted but before Antonelli had. It was that safety car which allowed Antonelli to get in for his tyre change and exit still in the lead he’d inherited as those three had pitted ahead of him. From there he simply pulverised the field, leaving Piastri far behind just clear of a great squabble between Leclerc, Russell, Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton, who finished in that order. Alpine’s Pierre Gasly tenaciously held off Max Verstappen’s Red Bull for best of the rest, in seventh.

Oliver Bearman's crashed Haas at the 2026 F1 Japanese Grand Prix

Bearman’s wrecked Haas took a 50g impact when it hit the barrier at Spoon

Grand Prix Photo

If there was going to be a closing speed accident related to the new regs, the approach to Spoon would have topped the list of potential danger points. Even though it had been designated a ‘zero Kw zone’ (meaning that it is permitted not to use the full 200kW of electrical power in the first 1sec of getting back onto the throttle after lifting) to help with the harvesting/deployment mismatch of the track, Spoon was where you’d begin planning your defence or attack into the chicane and Turn 1. Because you’d inevitably run out of electrical power on the straight between Spoon and 130R, the game would be to run out later than the other guy by having more battery energy saved as you went into Spoon.

But the attacking guy, if he’d been less than 1sec behind at the previous detection point, would have an extra 0.5 megajoules available from his overtake mode. So they (ie Bearman) could be more aggressive with their approach speed to Spoon. Bearman was reckoning on getting through Spoon and onto the back straight faster and having just as much energy because of the extra 0.5MJ allowance, as well as the later clipping of top speed allowed by the overtake mode. Not only that, but he’d worked out – just as has everyone else – that if you do a quick dab of brake when the PU begins to superclip (feeding the battery at the regulation 250kW when on full throttle), it will stop clipping. Russell was doing this in his dice with Leclerc at Melbourne. The GPS clearly shows Bearman dabbing the brake while flat-out on full throttle well before the kink to kill the clipping. So the speed mismatch was always likely to happen here, in seventh gear.

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The regulations probably also played their part in Antonelli’s terrible start, but only in that the cars are generically tricky off the line and the Mercedes particularly so. The basic error was Antonelli’s – just too sudden a release of the clutch.

But even though he was cursing back in sixth as Piastri led Leclerc, Norris, Russell and Hamilton up through the Esses in the opening moments, this wasn’t necessarily a lost race for Antonelli.

He was past Hamilton on the second lap into the chicane but then spent a long time stuck in the pack as Russell quickly picked off Norris and Leclerc and got after race leader Piastri. The McLaren driver thought Russell would be by “in half a lap” once he appeared in his mirrors but was pleasantly surprised to find he could keep him behind. The Mercedes is the fastest car in clear air, but its energy software wasn’t ideally configured for the Suzuka layout. Besides, the advantage of the clean air Piastri was enjoying was reckoned to be in the order of 0.5sec. As soon as Norris and Leclerc pitted out of his way Antonelli’s pace was formidable and he was closing down the gap to team mate Russell fast.

Oscar Piastri leads at the start of the 2026 F1 Japanese GP

Antonelli in the background as Piastri leads at the start

Grand Prix Photo

Russell’s qualifying had not gone well with an imbalance that took a lot of working around, and his pace deficit to Antonelli appeared to be there in the race too. He’d briefly got into the lead into the chicane at the end of the eighth lap but Piastri let him do it, correctly judging Russell would’ve used up his battery and that he’d be a simple drive-past on the pit straight. There’d then been a discussion on the Mercedes pitwall about going for the undercut on Piastri but by this time the McLaren driver was actually beginning to pull away – and Norris’s earlier attempt to undercut Leclerc hadn’t worked. The switch from mediums to slow-to-warm hards didn’t work for a McLaren so definitely wouldn’t have worked on a Merc which takes longer to get its tyres up to temperature.

The undercut ploy was abandoned, but now Russell, in the lead, had two more problems: Antonelli who was closing at 0.3sec per lap and Leclerc on his up-to-temperature new tyres only about three laps away from potentially undercutting after Russell came in. To retain track position, Russell was pitted the lap after Piastri. On the very next lap Bearman had his accident – and Antonelli was gifted the time-cheap stop which left him in the lead on fresh tyres lined up behind the safety car.

Oscar Piastri leads Russell in 2026 F1 Japanese GP

Russell had no way past Piastri, but the McLaren driver remained adrift from Antonelli

Grand Prix Photo

No-one saw which way he’d gone from there. Although Piastri looked to have had Russell covered from in front, he could do nothing about Antonelli from behind. The McLaren driver was faultless in delivering second place but even he was doubting he would have beaten Antonelli even without the safety car. A rogue code bug gave Russell an unplanned superclip up to Spoon and allowed Leclerc past, this some time after Charles had passed team mate Hamilton with a wheel-rubbing move around the outside of Turn 1. Hamilton couldn’t hold onto fifth, as Norris nipped by near the end.

Although the way the various performance profiles of Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari played out around Suzuka was interesting, this was a track which highlighted further shortfalls in the regulations. A series of meetings between the teams, F1 and the FIA in April is likely to result in a more heavily-tweaked F1 at Miami in a month’s time.

 

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