Formula 1 Focus: Antonelli ignites title fight, McLaren join the fray

[p][b][i][a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5aSMbENyKdW5zjvaZ0SKaA?si=RZfQUE1vQwmvwft9y9fvyw" target="_blank"]Listen to the article with Spotify.[/a][/i][/b][/p][p]That's a wrap on the first month of the 2026 Formula 1 season, a month that has flown by faster than the Mercedes flew around Suzuka over the weekend.[/p][p]It felt like we were entering a whole new world in the first two races, but things felt more familiar in Japan, maybe because fans and drivers are just getting used to the new regulations and maybe because overtaking is always going to be hard at Suzuka, regardless of the cars.[/p][p]And maybe also because there were two papaya cars fighting at the front of the field again...[/p][p]Here are my three main takeaways from the Japanese Grand Prix.[/p][h2]Title fight on the cards[/h2][embed guid="eba19abf-916c-4c0e-aae2-88792a3f4651" url="https://x.com/F1/status/2038326827467620730" social-type="twitter" /][p]After [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/antonelli-andrea-kimi/ptGu0mT1/"]Kimi Antonelli[/a] claimed his first victory last time out in China, I wrote in [i][b]F1 Focus[/b][/i] that he'd shown he was more than just second fiddle to [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/russell-george/xxF56RaN/"]George Russell[/a], but probably wouldn't be able to challenge his teammate for the title this season. A round later, that challenge has burst into life.[/p][p]Much like in Shanghai, some good fortune played a part in the Italian winning, with the timing of the Safety Car putting him ahead of his rivals. However, there's little doubt that he fully deserved this victory, because with the exception of his poor start to the race, he was the better Mercedes driver all weekend.[/p][p]He was comfortably faster than Russell in the last two practice sessions, and then went three tenths quicker than the Brit in qualifying to claim pole position - that's an absolutely massive margin. A day later, he set the fastest lap of the race on his way to victory.[/p][p]As a result, Antonelli is now nine points clear at the top of the championship, and that's not the only reason to now think he can fight for the title this season.[/p][p]In the first two rounds of the season, Russell seemed to have no issues whatsoever dealing with the tag of title favourite that had been placed on him, coming across calm and completely self-assured, but he's now starting to feel the heat.[/p][p]That was evident from his stressed messages on the team radio throughout the race, and his rare lack of pace in qualifying, usually his speciality. Being challenged by a teammate he's widely expected to beat, cracks are starting to show.[/p][p]He's still undoubtedly the most likely 2026 world champion, but claiming that title won't be as easy as most people thought it would be after the opening round.[/p][h2]McLaren back on track[/h2][embed guid="f1f877c9-668f-4c09-bdda-0a31a402426b" url="https://x.com/McLarenF1/status/2038155468145627358" social-type="twitter" /][p]Russell's was made a lot harder by the fact that he had to contend with not only Antonelli and the Ferraris but also the reigning champions, in a development that could change the course of the season.[/p][p]McLaren could hardly have made a worse start to the season, with reliability issues meaning [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/norris-lando/WSVABbVF/"]Lando Norris[/a] missed one of the first two races and [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/piastri-oscar/MqKAIeUf/"]Oscar Piastri[/a] both. In Japan, though, they not only both started and finished the Grand Prix but had the pace to fight at the very front throughout it, with only the timing of the Safety Car preventing Piastri from competing for and potentially claiming the win.[/p][p]At the start of the season, the team struggled to understand, integrate and maximise the engine they'd been given by Mercedes for 2026, but they're now starting to figure things out, with Norris saying after the race that they "clearly made significant progress with our power unit deployment". If they can continue to make such rapid progress, it surely won't be long before they're getting the best out of what is undoubtedly the best engine on the grid.[/p][p]If they can do so, whether or not they can pull clear of Ferrari and join Mercedes at the very front of the pack will come down to how well they develop their chassis, and they've shown in the past that they're top of the class when it comes to in-season development; just look back at 2024, when they started the campaign slower than Red Bull and ended it as the dominant force.[/p][p]Ferrari will of course introduce upgrades of their own, but with the best engine in F1 and a team that has operated well enough to win titles over the last few years, McLaren will fancy their chances of overhauling the Scuderia and maybe even reigning in the Silver Arrows.[/p][h2]Bearman crash guarantees regulation tweaks[/h2][p]One of the big questions heading to the Japanese Grand Prix was whether the new regulations would cause enough issues for changes to be made in the month-long break that followed it, and we got a clear answer on Sunday.[/p][p]Drivers once again being unable to push as hard as they could in qualifying, at a circuit famous for its high-speed thrills, wasn't ideal, but that issue was quickly forgotten when [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/bearman-oliver/tMI3u5xo/"]Ollie Bearman[/a] smashed into the barriers and highlighted a much bigger one.[/p][embed guid="0dcd40db-9ae9-41a4-9906-20528c663e9b" url="https://x.com/F1/status/2038134038314053859" social-type="twitter" /][p]There's no two ways about it: the crash was caused by the new rules. [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/colapinto-franco/GzFqySBA/"]Franco Colapinto[/a] needed to harvest electrical energy at the same time that Bearman was needing to deploy it, resulting in the former being far quicker than the latter than he would have reasonably expected and having to take dramatic action to avoid crashing into the back of him.[/p][p]Drivers had warned of the dangers of energy deployment prior to the incident, and maybe F1 would've made changes in the coming month in response to those warnings, but there's absolutely zero doubt that they will now. [/p][p]As I said in my last column, there are some really good things about the new cars - their more nimble nature and ability to follow each other closely have the potential to make for better racing than what we had - but it's now clear that the need to strictly manage the new electrical power has led to a downgrade in both speed and safety.[/p][p]Thankfully, there's now a good amount of time for tweaks to be introduced. If they listen to the drivers and collaborate with the teams, F1's new era can still be saved.[/p][image alt="Author" id="ab66e764-3771-448f-bde6-359d27d88274" credit-line="Flashscore" guid="57a69dd7-2464-4a97-9215-39ce410c99ce" original-width="1200" original-height="380" /]