Mercedes` Kimi Antonelli vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning Sunday`s Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren`s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari`s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli`s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. 

Mercedes are struggling to contain the excitement building around their young driver, even if Antonelli said he was “not thinking too much about the championship”. “Of course it`s great but it`s still a long way to go and I need to keep raising the bar, because George is very quick,” he said. “For sure he`s going to be back at his usual level and also competitors will eventually get closer.” Antonelli led home Piastri by 13.722sec, with Leclerc a further 1.548sec back in third. Russell finished fourth to drop to second in the championship standings on 63 points. Leclerc is third on 49. Russell battled Piastri for the lead over the first half of the race but pitted just before the safety car which dropped him out of contention for the win. 

Kimi Antonelli en route to victory in Japan. Pics/AFP

Piastri secured second in his first grand prix start of the season, after crashing on his way to the grid in the opener in Australia and missing the race in China because of a technical problem. Piastri led for the first half of the race before the safety car gave Antonelli his chance. “It would have been really interesting to see what would have happened without that,” said Piastri. “A shame that we never got to see what would have happened, but I think for us to be disappointed at this point about finishing second is a pretty good place to be.”

Poor starts `making life harder`

McLaren`s world champion Lando Norris was fifth ahead of Ferrari`s Lewis Hamilton and Alpine`s Pierre Gasly. Red Bull`s four-time world champion Max Verstappen, the winner in Japan for the past four years, was eighth after starting from 11th on the grid. Antonelli had become the youngest pole-sitter in F1 history in China and again was at the head of the grid. But he suffered a shocking start and was down in sixth by the first corner. Piastri took the early lead ahead of Leclerc, with Norris, Russell and Hamilton all sweeping past Antonelli. “It`s an area where I need to work a lot because it`s definitely not good enough,” said Antonelli. “I`m just making my life a lot harder.” 

The young Italian had made up some of the lost ground when a crash by Haas driver Ollie Bearman brought out the safety car during the pit stop window. Piastri had already pitted but Antonelli was able to dive in for fresh tyres moments after the safety car was deployed and emerged in front of the Australian, a stroke of luck that effectively won him the race. “I was very lucky with the timing of the safety car,” said Antonelli. Bearman got out of his car unaided but was limping badly as race marshals helped him off the track. Haas later said he had “a right knee contusion” and initial X-rays showed no fractures after hitting the barrier at high speed. Formula One now takes an extended break until the Miami Grand Prix on May 3. The Bahrain and Saudi Arabia races scheduled for April have been cancelled because of the war in the Middle East.

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In a match that produced 404 runs in 35.4 overs, a run rate of 11.41, Jacob Duffy’s magnificent 4-0-22-3 was worth its weight in gold. What made it even more commendable was that it came on the 31-year-old New Zealander’s IPL debut, for holders Royal Challengers Bengaluru against Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Decisive spell

Ishan Kishan, the SRH skipper, smacked 80 off 38, but RCB hunted down 201-9 with six wickets and 26 deliveries to spare on the back of Devdutt Padikkal’s 26-ball 61 and Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 69 off 38. But it was Duffy who was the point of difference after claiming Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Nitish Kumar Reddy in the first five overs.

Making the most of the bounce at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Duffy picked up all three wickets with the short ball. “A hell of a way to start the campaign,” the Player of the Match gushed on Saturday night. “I wanted to bowl the hard lengths, keep the ball there. We talked about the lengths, what works here. I haven’t seen such bounce in India before as we saw here.”

RCB’s Devdutt Padikkal during his 26-ball 61    

Bold call

Four overs on the bounce before he made way for impact player Padikkal wasn’t part of the initial plan, skipper Rajat Patidar revealed. “I decided that after his third over because [Heinrich] Klaasen and Ishan Kishan were batting. If we got one more wicket there, we could destroy their batting line-up. Duffy bowled beautifully; he is a specialist T20 bowler and we have a lot of confidence in him.”

Padikkal hit his first ball for six and dominated a stand of 101 with Kohli. “From Ball One, he was aggressive in the mindset and I enjoyed his batting from the dugout,” Patidar remarked. “Virat Kohli is the number one chase master. I like watching him bat — the shots he played, the way he assessed the situation…”

‘A challenging night’

The SRH bowlers had an outing to forget and Daniel Vettori, the head coach, conceded that it had been a ‘challenging’ night. “We just missed our lengths too much,” the former New Zealand captain admitted. “Duffy in particular showed the length to bowl on that surface.”

Vettori added that it was Padikkal’s ferocious innings after Phil Salt’s second-over dismissal that was decisive. “To come in, hit his first ball for six, strike at over 200, take on all bowlers, allowed Virat to get into his innings, even though he was striking quickly too,” he said. “The impetus that he showed when he came in was the real difference.”

203-4
No. of runs scored by RCB on Saturday — second-highest in a successful run chase against SRH after Kings XI Punjab’s 211-4 in 2014

15.4
No. of overs taken by RCB to go past SRH’s 201-9 — the fastest 200-plus chase in IPL