Chinese Grand Prix analysis, Oscar Piastri engine failure, McLaren reliability problems explained, Kimi Antonelli first win, Mercedes dominance

Andrea Kimi Antonelli is the 116th person to win a grand prix.

New winners are the lifeblood of all sport, and Formula 1 is no exception. To welcome a driver to the winners circle for the first time is always a special moment, signifying generational change.

Antonelli’s win was also historic. The 19-year-old is the second-youngest driver ever to win a race, behind only Max Verstappen, who claimed his improbable first at just 18 years old at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.

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He also ended a drought that lasted so long it had become almost imperceptible.

On Thursday it will be 20 years to the day that Giancarlo Fisichella won the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix. He wasn’t to know it at the time, but for almost exactly two long decades, Fisi would be the last Italian to win a Formula 1 race.

Now Antonelli has taken Italy back to the top stop of the podium.

“I’m super happy,” Antonelli said. “I said yesterday that I really wanted to bring Italy back on top, and we did today.”

But Antonelli’s victory in China was more than just a memorable occasion. It’s likely an important one too.

Antonelli was promoted to Formula 1 at just 18 years old because Mercedes is convinced he’s one of the greats.

If the team is right, this win will be the first of many — and the Chinese Grand Prix trophy will one day be towered over by a world championship.

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‘HERE WE GO, KIMI. VICTORY.’

Toto Wolff keeps receipts; all the great powerbrokers do.

He redeemed them all at once after Antonelli took the chequered flag.

“He’s too young. We shouldn’t put him in a Mercedes. Put him in a smaller team. He needs experience. Look at the mistakes he makes,” Wolff said, rattling off the criticisms levelled at team and driver last year.

“Here we go, Kimi. Victory.”

This result is in many respects personal for Wolff, who deep down smarts at being beaten by Red Bull to Max Verstappen’s signature.

Antonelli, he hopes, is the answer to his missed Verstappen chance. Wolff he was willing to take the flack for the call last year, as the teenager predictably struggled to adapt to life in Formula 1, particularly as the team lumbered through another generally uncompetitive campaign in the ground-effect era.

“I think it’s maybe come earlier than I thought,” the boss told Sky Sports nonetheless. “Last year we said it was going to be a difficult year with many ups and downs and mistakes, and then bang, second race — he’s controlled it at the front.

“He’s driven very well today. He’s probably a little bit better than the trajectory I thought.”

There was a second important thread that was impossible to ignore too.

Putting Antonelli into a Formula 1 seat in 2025 wasn’t the original plan. Lewis Hamilton had an option on his contract to continue with the team until the end of last year, but the Briton famously decided against activating it to join Ferrari instead.

Part of the reason for that was that Mercedes was no longer willing to offer him long-term deals as he hurtled towards his 40s.

“We’re in a sport where cognitive sharpness is extremely important, and I believe everyone has a shelf life,” Wolff said in the book Inside Mercedes.

The Antonelli plan was fast-tracked to fill the gap left by Hamilton.

“I have to say a huge congratulations to Kimi,” Hamilton said, sharing the podium with the teenager. “He took my seat, obviously, at this great team.”

It wasn’t the first time Hamilton used that phrase, and he appeared to be using it with genuine warmth.

But it nonetheless served to emphasise that Mercedes really does believe that, given enough time, it could have the next Hamilton on its hands — and that sometimes generational change can’t be held back.

THERE’S LIFE IN ‘OLD DOG’ HAMILTON YET

Hamilton holds the unenviable record of most Ferrari starts without a podium, at 25, but the Briton got it done at the 26th time of asking.

It’s fitting that it should have come in China. Not only was this the scene of his previous Ferrari highlight — sprint pole and victory last year — but he shared in a Mercedes one-two finish, almost as if formalising the changing of the guard.

When he stood on the podium, he was standing alongside his successor, Antonelli; his former teammate, George Russell; and, perhaps most importantly, his former race engineer, Peter Bonnington.

Bono had been the voice in Hamilton’s ear for his entire Mercedes career, playing a role in the six world titles he won with the team, but he elected not to follow him to Ferrari, instead taking on the project of transitioning Antonelli into Formula 1.

For Wolff, who has been decisive in guiding all three drivers, it was an emotional moment.

“I’ve been in Formula 1, but that podium was one of the best moments I’ve ever had,” he said. “The three of them with Bono right in the middle, who had been with Lewis forever then basically taking over Kimi and making Kimi into what he is today — to be honest, it is rare that I’m overwhelmed, but this is such a moment.”

Hamilton was similarly moved by the occasion.

“To see George come through the sport and then get to Formula 1, and now to see Kimi come through and to be able to be here with them — especially as Kimi took my seat — and then Bono, whom I’ve worked with for so long, it’s like sitting here with my whole family,” he said.

But Hamilton wasn’t happy just because he was sharing in an important moment for a team he chose to leave.

This was also an important race for him.

Hamilton has turned a corner.

It’s hard to be definitive about how close Hamilton is to peak form and whether he’s still good enough to fight for the title with Charles Leclerc as his teammate, but it’s clear the seven-time champion is much happier and much more effective in the 2026 Ferrari.

“I’ve been pushing for a podium,” he said. “It’s the hardest thing just to get a podium compared to a lot through my career and it was the biggest challenge to get that, and I just had to bide my time.

“Coming into the season I really cultivated that really positive mental attitude and I’m taking that forward with me.

“I definitely feel like I’m back to my best both mentally and physically.

“I do think there’s more to come.”

Or, as Bono put it to Sky Sports: “There’s life in the old dog.”

McLAREN IN HISTORIC DISASTER AS MERCEDES UNRELIABILITY COUNT MOUNTS

McLaren collected a historic first of its own this weekend, though it was a deeply unwanted one.

The Chinese Grand Prix was the first race in 21 years, since 2005, that both cars didn’t take the start.

And it’s worth mentioning that the team withdrew both its cars on safety grounds at the infamous 2005 United States Grand Prix.

China, then, was the first time in the team’s two-car history that it failed to have at least one of its cars on the grid when the lights went out on technical grounds.

“Obviously a disappointing day,” McLaren boss Andrea Stella said. “It’s quite frustrating, because we go racing to be on track, and today we saw two McLarens in the garage while the other cars were racing.”

Norris’s car was the first to be withdrawn, with the reigning champion unable to even leave pit lane. Piastri made it to the grid but was wheeled off at the final moment — while the opening credits of the broadcast were playing — and didn’t make it out again.

Stella explained that, remarkably, both cars suffered terminal failures to the same part but for totally different reasons.

“On Lando’s car, in preparation for the laps to the grid, we saw that there were problems with the electrical side of the power unit. We couldn’t communicate with this component.

“We tried to rectify the problem. We tried to change as many parts as possible without having to change that part specifically, because it would take a long time and we couldn’t have made it to the start of the race.

“We reprogrammed, but there was no way to fix the problem, and Lando’s car was simply just not in a condition to leave the garage.

“On Oscar’s side … once on the grid, the car wouldn’t fire up again — in a similar manner to Lando, but actually on Oscar’s side it was easier to diagnose the problem, and it appears to be a problem with the same power unit component on the electrical side but a problem of a different nature.

“It’s quite exceptional and uncharacteristic that you have two terminal problems pretty much at the same time on the same component, which in this case is on the electrical side of the power unit.”

McLaren buys customer Mercedes power units, and Stella said that all the evidence suggested the failure was in “an area of the car which is not under McLaren’s control” — that is, in Mercedes’s jurisdiction.

McLaren’s double failure follows the Mercedes works team having an as-yet unexplained systems failure during qualifying on Saturday that almost prevented Russell from contending in Q3. In Australia last weekend, Carlos Sainz failed to qualify due to a Mercedes power unit problem too.

It’s too early to say there’s a definite trend here, and every team and power unit manufacturer has a story of at least some unreliability this year given the dramatically changed regulations.

But for all the strengths of the Mercedes package, there certainly appears to be some weaknesses too.

It’s galling for McLaren, the defending constructors champion, which still believes it can get its season back on track.

“The most detrimental aspect of not being able to participate in this race is the points in the championship,” Stella said.

“We obviously race with the ambition to compete for important results, and we are just losing ground.”

It’s painful for Norris, who must be wondering whether he’ll have a chance to defend his championship at all.

But it must be most frustrating for Piastri, who is yet to even start a grand prix this year, never mind finish one, with his only points coming from Saturday’s sprint race.

“It is a tough moment, that’s for sure,” Stella said. “If we consider that Oscar has not been able to start a race in this start of the 2026 campaign, that’s pretty difficult for Oscar to process.

“But at the same time, and this was testified and witnessed in the conversation with Lando and Oscar after the race, both remain quite positive.”

HIGH ATTRITION LEADS TO MIXED RESULTS

McLaren’s double DNS was representative of the high attrition rate in Shanghai that reflects fears held late last year about unreliability rather than what looked like a rock-solid pre-season testing campaign for most teams.

The demands of competition are always harsher than those of practice.

Only 15 of the 22 drivers saw the chequered flag.

Norris and Piastri were joined by Gabriel Bortoleto and Alex Albon in abortive pit-lane starts, the latter due to a hydraulic issue.

Lance Stroll retired after only nine laps with a suspected battery problem, with teammate Fernando Alonso retiring after 32 laps due to extreme vibrations in the car that left his arms numb — team boss Adrian Newey, who was not in China, said last week that the Spaniard thought he would suffer permanent nerve damage if he completed a race in the shaking car.

Max Verstappen then retired 11 laps from the finish with what he called an energy recovery system cooling problem, ending the Dutchman’s miserable, scoreless weekend early.

“I think this weekend was particularly bad,” he said.

“There are more problems than we expected and also balance-wise it’s not where we want to be. A lot of stuff that hopefully after Japan — we have a bit of a bigger break now — we can make some good steps.”

But having so many drivers out of the mix — combined with Isack Hadjar being spun off the road and dropping to last on the first lap — opened the door to some surprise scorers.

Oliver Bearman was an excellent fifth, which was enough to put his Haas team a remarkable fourth in the constructors championship. All 17 of the team’s points are his; teammate Esteban Ocon failed to score again after crashing into Franco Colapinto and copping a 10-second penalty to contribute to the shifting power dynamic against him inside the American-owned squad.

Pierre Gasly was superb to finish sixth for Alpine, getting the sort of result the team expected in pre-season testing but was shocked to be nowhere near in Australia. He was backed up by teammate Franco Colapinto, who snuck home in 10th for the first point of his Alpine career and first F1 score since his Williams reserve days of 2024.

Liam Lawson doubled down on his sprint points in seventh for Racing Bulls, the Kiwi keeping his head down and doing the job.

And Carlos Sainz gave Williams some tiny bit of relief by getting the team on the board when previously it had been among only Aston Martin and Cadillac as the non-scorers.

If unreliability is going to be a significant part of the 2026 story, these sorts of races are going to count when the prize money is doled out in December.