Antonelli is 13th Formula 1 driver to score a ‘hat trick’ with his first win

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The 2026 Formula 1 season was supposed to see the long-awaited expansion of the grid to 22 cars.

But neither of the first two grands prix this year has seen a full grid yet. In China, four cars failed to start the race either from the grid or the pit lane: both McLarens, plus Gabriel Bortoleto’s Audi and Alexander Albon’s Williams.

You have to go back over 20 years – to one of Formula 1’s most notorious races – for the last time more drivers who qualified did not take the start. At the 2005 United States Grand Prix all seven teams using Michelin tyres (before F1 mandated a single supplier) withdrew on the formation lap on safety grounds. Officially, 13 drivers who had qualified did not start, with Ralf Schumacher having already withdrawn after suffering a heavy crash.

Oscar Piastri, who crashed on the formation lap in Australia, became the first driver in Formula 1 history to qualify for but fail to start the first two grands prix of the season (he did start the sprint race on Saturday). Coincidentally, the last driver to post a ‘DNS’ in two consecutive grands prix was McLaren team founder Bruce McLaren in the final rounds of 1969. Others have come close: Manfred Winkelhock did not start twice in three rounds in 1984, as did Patrick Tambay in 1982.

Piastri did not start for the second grand prix in a row

Andrea Kimi Antonelli headed the reduced, 18-car grid after breaking the record for the youngest pole-winner for a grand prix (he previously took pole for last year’s sprint race in Miami). At 19 years and 202 days, Antonelli lowered the previous record by more than a year.

Sebastian Vettel was 21 years and 73 days old when he set the record at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix. Remarkably, the driver he took the record off is still on the grid today: Fernando Alonso became the world’s youngest pole winner at the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix, then aged 21 years and 236 days – still more than two years older than Antonelli.

Antonelli’s pole position was the first for an Italian driver since Giancarlo Fisichella’s shock pole position for Force India at the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix. Fisichella had also achieved the most recent grand prix victory for an Italian driver until Antonelli’s triumph on Sunday. Almost 20 years passed between Fisichella’s 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix win and Antonelli’s maiden victory.

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While Antonelli is the 51st F1 driver to score a ‘hat trick’ of pole position, win and fastest lap, very few have done it on the occasion of the first grand prix victory. Antonelli is only the 13th, one of whom is his team mate George Russell, who won the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix after setting fastest lap and starting the race from pole position. Note Formula One Management do not recognise this pole position as Kevin Magnussen set the fastest time in qualifying for the sprint race, which decided the grid at the time.

Michael Schumacher, David Coulthard, Damon Hill, Estoril, 1995 — Coulthard took his first win with a ‘hat trick’

Almost all the other drivers who achieved a hat trick with their first wins went on to become champions, usually multiple champions. They are Sebastian Vettel, Ayrton Senna, Juan Manuel Fangio, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet, Giuseppe Farina, Jochen Rindt and Phil Hill. Besides Mercedes’ current drivers, the only non-champions to achieve a hat trick with their first win were Stirling Moss in the 1955 British Grand Prix, David Coulthard in the 1995 Portuguese Grand Prix, and 1953 Indianapolis 500 winner Bill Vukovich.

Antonelli very nearly did even better. He was one lap away from leading every lap of the race, which would have given him a ‘grand slam’. He started lap two less than seven tenths of a second behind Lewis Hamilton, then took the lead and was never headed from then on.

Remarkably, Hamilton is the only driver to have led both of this year’s grands prix. But he has headed the field for just four laps while the others are well into double-digits.

Antonelli is the 116th winner of a world championship round. That, plus the returns of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez to the championship, means F1 now has 13 winners on the grid. This is the most since Oscar Piastri became a grand prix winner in 2024, though the peak remains 15 back in 1978.

Mercedes achieved their 62nd one-two finish, but only their seventh which did not include Hamilton. He joined their drivers on the podium as he finally achieved his first top-three finish in a grand prix for Ferrari, having taken longer than any of their previous drivers to do so.

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Franco Colapinto ran as high as second at one stage and surely deserved more than the single point he took for tenth place, after being sent spinning by Esteban Ocon. Still, the driver who started more races than anyone without scoring last year will be relieved to have taken his first point since the 2024 United States Grand Prix, when he was at Williams.

Remarkably, Max Verstappen failed to score in either of last weekend’s races. He left Shanghai still on eight points, his lowest tally after two rounds since 2018.