Kimi Antonelli takes pole for Japanese Grand Prix ahead of George Russell

The F1 bandwagon has arrived in Suzuka for round three of the 2026 F1 World Championship. The first two weekends of the season have been dominated by Mercedes, with George Russell winning the opening race in Melbourne before his teammate Kimi Antonelli took his maiden grand prix victory in China last time out. Russell leads the way in the drivers’ standings, four points ahead of Antonelli whilst Mercedes are over 30 points ahead of Ferrari at the summit of the constructors’ standings.

The FIA have made a rule tweak to qualifying coming into this weekend, which will see the permitted energy recharge per lap reduced from nine megajoules to eight. This should see the amount of energy saving the drives are required to do around a lap reduced. There has also been some spotlight over the Mercedes front wing following the race in China. Championship leader Russell believes other teams are playing games to try and affect Mercedes’ dominance in these early stages of the season.

“That is just how sport goes on to be honest,” Russell said. “That has always been the case. We have worked so hard to get ourselves in this position, and the best team should come out on top. We have obviously had four years of struggle. There have been two other teams over four years who have dominated and won.

“Just because we are sort of back on top, I do not think it is quite right, everybody is trying to slow us down, especially when you are two races in. It is a big old season, so things will change. We have already seen Red Bull is overweight and some things we saw in the press last week, McLaren have not brought an upgrade to the car. They are still running their Bahrain package. We should not forget these things. We do have an advantage right now, but I think we have just really hit the ground running and done a great job. We hope it continues.”

Defending constructors’ champions McLaren will be hoping for a better weekend than China a few weeks ago, where neither Lando Norris nor Oscar Piastri started the main race due to unrelated power unit-related issues on both cars. Piastri was fastest in second practice yesterday, with Norris fourth.

Max Verstappen has taken the last four pole positions and wins at the Japanese Grand Prix but it would be a major shock if that run continued this weekend, considering Red Bull’s struggles at the start of this season. The Dutchman was involved in some drama before the weekend has even got going, demanding a journalist “get out” of a press conference coming into this weekend.

With the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekends next month cancelled as a result of the war in the Middle East, this is the final race for five weeks until we reach Miami at the start of May. Conditions are set fair for qualifying so the session should be a dry one. Qualifying begins at 6am GMT.