George Russell was knocked off his expected pole position by his Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix. Championship-leader Russell suffered a difficult afternoon, sending a sequence of distressed messages to the pit wall, telling them to ‘look at everything’ to rectify his problems. So Antonelli took a second successive pole after his career first in Shanghai last weekend at 19 years 202 days, converting his sure-footed afternoon’s work here into a pole lap by a yawning 0.298sec from Russell. Antonelli is four points behind Russell heading into Sunday’s race owing to the British driver’s sprint win. The four-time world champion, a major critic of this season’s technical changes, complained: ‘There is something wrong with the car.

Source: Daily Mail March 28, 2026 07:41 UTC