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The Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli, winner two Sundays ago in China, will start first this Sunday in the Japanese Grand Prix, the third of the Formula One World Championship<\/strong>at the Suzuka circuit, where Mercedes confirmed that it once again dominates the premier category by complete the first row of the grid with Englishman George Russell<\/strong>championship leader.<\/p>\n Antonelli, 19 years old, who in Shanghai had become the youngest pole sitter in the history of F1, has taken a liking to starting from the position of honor and just two weeks later he has just signed his second pole position in the premier category, by dominating this Saturday’s qualifying. A great lap in the third round, where he covered the 5,807 meters of the Japanese track in one minute, 28 seconds and 778 thousandths, 298 less than Russell, earned him first place. <\/p>\n Mercedes proved to be the team to beat in this new era of F1 – at least at the start of it -, marked by a change in technical regulations that has become a real nightmare for more than one. <\/p>\n The Spanish Carlos Sainz (Williams) starts sixteenth, much further behind than expected, while his compatriot Fernando Alonso, with a disastrous Aston Martin, will start from twenty-first place<\/strong>after having only improved his teammate, the Canadian Lance Stroll, who starts last.<\/p>\n “Everything remains the same. The first two races were complicated and the next ten will be complicated,” commented the Asturian double world champion, retired in Australia and China with an AMR26 from which much was expected and which has contributed nothing. “Miracles do not exist. The first part of the year will be very hard and the second part, we hope it will be a little better,” stressed Alonso, who delayed his arrival in Japan for one day – where he achieved two of his 32 victories in the honor division – because of his new fatherhood.<\/p>\n On a day in which the Dutch quadruple world champion Max Verstappen (Red Bull) – eleventh on the grid – was eliminated in the second round (Q2)<\/strong>it was clear that Mercedes sets the pace and that behind the German team there are the positions from third to sixth between McLaren and Ferrari. <\/strong><\/p>\n The Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren) – third, 354 thousandths behind the young Bolognese driver – and the Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), 627, will start from the second row. And from third place will be the Englishman Lando Norris, the last world champion – six tenths behind Antonelli this Saturday – and his compatriot, the seven-time crowned Lewis Hamilton, who was almost eight behind and will start sixth with the other red car.<\/p>\n In this way, whoever bets on a victory this Sunday for one of the two ‘silver arrows’ can win some money, but they certainly won’t break the bank.<\/p>\n Sainz will start from the eighth row, next to the Argentine Franco Colapinto (Alpine), who finished the main qualifying fifteenth, one place ahead of him and with much better feelings than last year. The other Spanish speaker, the Mexican Sergio P\u00e9rez (Cadillac), will start nineteenth, from the penultimate, which will be completed by his teammate, the Finnish Valtteri Bottas.<\/p>\n Piastri had surprised the Mercedes – dominant in the first test – on Friday, relegating them to second and third place, but the Brackley cars once again demonstrated their dominance in the last free practice this Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Antonelli, who two Sundays ago became the second youngest winner in F1 history in China – behind ‘Mad Max’ – and the first Italian since Giancarlo Fisichella last did it 20 years ago<\/strong>had been the fastest (1:29.362), two and a half tenths ahead of Russell. Forcing the Ferraris – which completed the podium in both Melbourne and Shanghai – to split from third to sixth place with the McLarens.<\/p>\n Leclerc had been third in the morning, eight tenths behind, and Piastri -fourth- was more than a second behind the young Bolognese, who had also been more than a second behind Hamilton and 1.238 Norris: crowned last year, after a spectacular end to the season by Verstappen, who finds it increasingly difficult to achieve a fifth title this year that was close to the previous one.<\/p>\n In the last test, the Dutch star had been tenth – a second and a half behind Antonelli – in the process of assimilating his new reality; even harder for Alonso, along with Sir Lewis and Lando, the fourth universal champion on the track. The man from Oviedo had closed the table by more than four seconds, like his teammate Stroll, penultimate in the morning.<\/p>\n Sainz, almost two and a half seconds behind, had been eighteenth, one place behind Colapinto -at 2,397- with his eyes focused very carefully on qualifying, in which, by a whisker, both escaped a first-round elimination announced for both Alonso and ‘Checo’. <\/p>\n “It’s what we’re fighting for now, unfortunately. At least I did a good lap, but it’s frustrating to be six or eight tenths off the middle zone; already more than two seconds off the lead,” explained the man from Madrid after the main qualifying session. <\/p>\n The Asturian star – the only winner, along with Hamilton, on the two tracks in Japan: in 2006, the year he revalidated the title, on this track; and two years later, in Fuji, he fell with the twenty-first time and the pilot from Guadalajara did so with the nineteenth. <\/p>\n As a lesser evil, both returned to the hotel having beaten their respective teammates: the Finnish Valtteri Bottas, the Mexican, starts twentieth; while Stroll will start last, after finishing the first round in that position, in which the Thai Alex Albon, Sainz’s garage neighbor, was also left out.<\/p>\n As expected, Colapinto -fifteenth- and Carlos -one place behind- were left out in Q2. In which Verstappen, who in the past four years had achieved victory always starting from pole, became the most egregious eliminated. <\/p>\n “This car is completely ‘undriveable’,” complained the Dutch star<\/strong>whose emotional situation worsened when he learned that his new teammate, the Frenchman Isack Hadjar, and the British-Swedish debutant Arvid Lindblad, aboard a Racing Bull – ‘second team’ of the powerful Austrian team – had gone on to the decisive stage. In which the Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto also rode, who will start ninth in the Audi.<\/p>\n Hadjar starts eighth, one place behind Frenchman Pierre Gasly, Colapinto’s teammate in Alpine, a team that this year looks much better than last. <\/p>\n Lindblad, at 18 years old the youngest of the 22 contenders, considered the tenth place he will occupy on the grid to be very good.<\/strong><\/p>\n Leclerc had been the fastest in the first round and second in Q2, but, when push came to shove, he had to settle for finishing fourth. Next to Piastri, third overall last year and who, after not being able to do so either in his native Melbourne or in China – due to problems with the McLaren -, hopes to finally be able to start for the first time in a long race this year (in the short one in Shanghai he was sixth).<\/p>\n Mercedes rules and, contrary to what some might expect, Antonelli seems not to be content with supporting Russell<\/strong>nine years older than him and who, after winning the inaugural race in Australia (the Englishman also scored the sprint in China), has six victories in F1, five more than him. If he wins this Sunday, the emerging Bolognese star will take the reins of this World Cup. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli, winner two Sundays ago in China, will start first this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Another fateful weekend for the Spanish<\/h2>\n
Antonelli, a real alternative at the start of the campaign<\/h2>\n