17/03/2026

SPORTS TUESDAY | MAR 17, 2026

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‘Too early for title talk’ Mercedes’ Wolff ‘overwhelmed’ by Antonelli’s first win and China podium M ERCEDES BOSS Toto Wolff sought to dampen hype building around 19-year-old Kimi Antonelli after the Italian powered to a com Wolff surprised pundits when he picked Antonelli as seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton’s replacement after the British driver shocked the sport by moving to rivals Ferrari for the 2025 season, despite more expe rienced drivers being available.

CHINESE GP TALKING POINTS

KIMI ANTONELLI, 19, converted being the youngest pole-sitter in history into a maiden victory at the Chinese Grand Prix after an action-packed weekend domi nated by Mercedes. Teammate George Russell took the chequered flag in the sprint but there were big problems for Red Bull’s Max Verstappen while both McLarens, includ ing world champion Lando Norris, failed to even start the race. Below are the talking points from Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday: BAHRAIN, SAUDI HEADACHE The paddock in China woke up on Sunday to confirmation of the worst-kept secret in Formula One: next month’s grands prix in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia had been cancelled because of the war in the Middle East. The decision leaves teams and drivers with an almost five-week gap between the Japanese Grand Prix on March 29 and the start of the Miami race weekend on May 1. The change in schedule will affect development plans of teams already wrestling with sweeping regulation changes and new car designs. Many were planning to bring upgrades to the Middle East races but they will now lose six practice sessions and two races in which to gather valu able data and on-track running. On the plus side, it will give more time behind the scenes and in the simulators to get their heads around F1’s brave new world. MERCEDES DOMINATE Mercedes took a second consecutive one-two in China, with Antonelli leading home Russell. Russell leads Antonelli by four points in the drivers’ championship and Mercedes have 98 in the constructors’ table, 31 clear of Ferrari, who seem to be their only challengers at present. After front-row lockouts in qualifying for both races this season, it has observ ers predicting confidently that a Mercedes driver will be crowned world champion in 2026. It appears just a question of whether it will be Russell or Antonelli. Both would be champions for the first time. MCLAREN, RED BULL IN MIRE Constructors world champions McLaren were hurting badly after neither of their drivers even made the formation lap in Shanghai. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri has now failed to start either of this season’s two grands prix, though he did pick up three points for sixth place in Saturday’s sprint. A few garages along the pit lane, Verstappen and Red Bull had very little to smile about either as the four-time world champion could only qualify eighth, dropped down the field after a terrible start and then retired on lap 46 with a cooling problem. The once-dominant Red Bulls have suffered more than most from Formula One’s sweeping new regulations and for the first time the team failed to score a point in a sprint race. “Nothing works. So it’s just not nice,” fumed Verstappen. “Every lap is honestly survival for me. I’m not enjoying it at all.” After two weekends McLaren are already a massive 80 points behind Mercedes in the constructors’ champion ship and Red Bull are a further six points back. AFP

humility, the intelligence, the empathy around the team, there’s like 20 factors that matter to become a great world champion. “But there’s one you can’t learn, and that’s the talent.” Antonelli, the first Italian race winner since Giancarlo Fisichella 20 years ago and the sec ond youngest F1 winner of all time, is now only four points behind Russell in the standings. He said on Saturday he wanted to put Italy back on top and he did so, but there was also a heart-stopping moment three laps from the end that showed he still has much to learn. “I gave myself a little bit of a heart attack towards the end with a (tyre) flat spot,” he said of the moment where he locked up and ran wide, losing precious seconds to the chasing Russell. “There’s so much that I’ve learned, but first of all it’s never to relax too much because today it went well, but it could have been worse,” he said. “Just always try to stay on point and keep the focus because today at the end I opened the room for mistakes and the mistake hap pened. I just need to make sure it doesn’t hap pen again.” – AFP/Reuters

manding first Formula One grand prix win on Sunday in China to put himself in champion ship contention. “You can kind of see the hype that is going to start now. Especially in Italy, I see already the headlines: ‘World Champion Grand Kimi,’ and whatever, and that’s really not good because those mistakes are going to come,” the Austrian told reporters. “He’s just a kid, and it’s too early to even think about the champion ship.” Antonelli locked up his front wheels in the closing laps of the race, going off the track, a mistake betraying his inexperience that Wolff attributed to his driver not being able to help himself setting faster and faster laps even when victory is almost assured. “I said to Bono (Antonelli’s race engineer), ‘come on, let’s tell him to calm down … we don’t want him to lose this race!” Wolff said. “We are going to have other moments this year where there will be mistakes, because he’s still just a very young man.”

“At the moment (we have) a car that is capa ble of winning, both (drivers) have equal opportunity,” Wolff said when asked whether he was worried about tension building between Antonelli and teammate George Russell as they both chase a first world cham pionship. Wolff said he did not anticipate a repeat of the fierce rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg when they were both driving for the Mercedes team from 2013 to 2016. Wolff praised Russell for stepping into Hamilton’s shoes as team leader and said Antonelli had a great role model in the British driver. “You can never learn raw speed,” Wolff said when asked what he most liked about Antonelli as a driver. “He has that, and there’s not many that have that. “But to become a really big champion … it needs the maturity, the personality, needs the

Verstappen slams ‘joke’ after Chinese GP retirement

FOUR-TIMES world champion Max Verstappen blasted Formula One’s new era as a ‘joke’ on Sunday after retiring from the Chinese Grand Prix with a power unit problem. The Red Bull driver, no fan of the new engine with its increased electrical element and need to manage energy deployment, slowed and limped back to the pits on lap 46. He was not classified in a race of 15 finishers. “It’s not about being upset at where I am, because I’m actually about the racing product. “For me, it’s a joke,” he con tinued, calling the new rules “fun damentally flawed.” The 71-times race winner has spent more time this seasonscrap ping for meagre points than he has been used to. He fought his way through the pack from 20th on the grid follow ing a crash in qualifying at last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, and dropped from eighth to 14th in Saturday’s sprint race in China before finishing ninth and out of the points. fighting even more now,” the Dutchman told reporters. “I would say the same if I was win ning races, because I care

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Verstappen’s with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff praising the racing between his two drivers and the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari drivers were also effusive about the battle between them in a race that ultimately saw Kimi Antonelli secure his maiden F1 win for Mercedes. “Sometimes we are nostalgic about the good old years, but I think the product is good in itself,” Austrian Wolff told reporters after the race. “The vast majority, through all demographics, like the sport at the moment,” he added. “Max is really in a horror show. I’m sure for someone like Max, who is a full attack guy, it’s difficult to cope and digest.” Verstappen said he hoped Formula One would not prioritise reaching new fans and growing the sport’s appeal by making over taking easier at the expense of con ventional racing. “I hope they don’t think like that, because it will eventually ruin the sport. It will come and bite them back in the ass,” he said. “Maybe some fans like it, but they don’t understand racing.” – Reuters opinion,

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen gets out of his car after retiring from the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday. – REUTERSPIC

Stella laments ‘incredibly frustrating’ double failure TEAM PRINCIPAL Andrea Stella said it was “incredibly frustrating” after both of his McLaren cars failed to start the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday because of technical problems. World champion Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were left kicking their heels in the pit lane because of issues before the start at the Shanghai International Circuit. nical problems,” Stella told Sky F1 . “This is very frustrating and disappointing for the team, for the drivers, for our technical and commercial partners, and obviously for our fans. “So we are sorry for that. We will regroup. We will understand these technical problems and we will go again in Japan.” Norris was unable to leave the garage for a run to the starting grid. It compounded an awful start to the season for constructors’ world champions McLaren. “We came here to go racing and today we were not in condition to do so because of tech “Once we were preparing the car of Lando to leave the garage, we found a problem on

the electrical side of the power unit,” explained Stella. “We tried to fix it, but actually there was no way to fix it.” Piastri did make it to the grid but was pushed back into the garage a few minutes later. “We found another problem on the electri cal side of the power unit on Oscar’s car,” said Stella. “They seem to be different problems and they were basically meaning that there was no way to start the race.” – AFP