Teenager Antonelli hailed by fellow drivers after imperious Chinese GP win

Dubai: Kimi Antonelli showed why Mercedes team Principal Toto Wolff believes he is the next big thing in Formula 1, as the 19-year-old won the Chinese Grand Prix after starting from pole and comfortably holding off second-placed teammate George Russell, whose former Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton finished third in the Ferrari.

Even as several teams battled reliability issues that forced world champions McLaren to retire both their cars in the garage and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to call it quits on lap 46, it was the Italian wonderkid who showed supreme racecraft – barring one heart-stopping moment when he locked up at the hairpin on his penultimate lap – to cruise to a five-second victory over Russell.

"I'm speechless, I'm about to cry to be honest," said Antonelli as he choked back tears.

"Thank you to the team for helping me to achieve this dream.

"I really wanted to bring Italy back to the top and we did today. Even if I gave myself a little bit of a heart attack towards the end a flat spot."

Early championship leader Russell was full of praise for his young teammate after the dominant Mercedes team secured a one-two for the second race running.

"A huge congratulations to Kimi because it's always very special to win your first race," said Russell, whose lead has been cut to four points by Antonelli.

The Italian replaced Hamilton at Mercedes and the seven-time world champion said he could not be more pleased for the teenager and his old team.

"I'm so, so happy for you buddy, and I'm so honoured to be able to share this moment with him," said Hamilton.

"He took my seat obviously, at this great team. So big congratulations to Mercedes.

"They're really pulling ahead at the moment. We've got a lot of work to do to try and keep up."

Later on Sunday, ‘F1 The Movie’ will be vying for the biggest prize after getting four Oscar nods, but McLaren’s Oscar Piastri must be shaking his head in disbelief in what must seem like a badly-written F1 script this season.

Having crashed out even before the formation lap during his home race in Melbourne, the Australian, who finished third in the championship last year, did get round to the grid but was pushed back into the garage a few minutes later due to a problem on the electrical side of the power unit.

Current world champion Lando Norris also had an electrical problem that prevented him getting to the grid.

The British driver, who came fifth in the season-opening race in Melbourne, told Sky Sports: "Just frustrating.

"It is on the PU (power unit) side, so the guys tried as hard as they could to get things sorted, but they were unable to.

"My first DNS (did not start) in F1, tough to take, but that is racing sometimes."

Hamilton, who is the producer of the ‘F1’ movie, will not be at the awards, but made sure he was on the podium for the first time with Ferrari, after a pulsating battle with teammate Charles Leclerc, who finished fourth.

Oliver Bearman was fifth in the Haas, followed home by Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and Liam Lawson (RB).

Rounding out the top-10 points scorers were Isack Hadjar (Red Bull), Carlos Sainz (Williams) and Franco Colapinto (Alpine).

The F1 bandwagon next moves to the Japanese Grand Prix in two weeks’ time after which there’s more than a month’s break due to the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in April.