The races continue, Antonelli still in the lead

After a long weekend of racing, the youngest World Driver Championship leader, Kimi Antonelli, still has the lead with 72 points. 

Antonelli and teammate George Russell began Sunday’s race in first and second, respectively, followed by McLaren driver Oscar Piastri. Piastri overtook both Mercedes drivers around the first corner, giving him the lead.  

This is Piastri’s first race start of the season after a crash in the formation lap in Australia and an electrical fault in his power unit in China. 

“Turns out, we're alright once we start,” Piastri said in an interview with formula1.com. 

Piastri held the lead until Oliver Bearman, driver for Haas, slammed into the tire barrier after a failed attempt to pass Alpine’s Franco Colapinto. Bearman’s crash led to the deployment of the safety car, where Piastri lost the net lead to Antonelli. 

Antonelli was able to pit under the safety car, which gave him the ultimate advantage against Piastri, who pitted a few laps prior. 

"I think, obviously, we were very lucky with [the] safety car, but on the medium [tire], we were really strong once I got some free air, and then on the hard [tire] the pace was just incredible," Antonelli said to espn.com. "I don't know what would have happened, how the outcome would have been without the safety car." 

After the safety car, Antonelli, being in the lead, restarted the race. He was able to quickly put time between himself and Piastri, a 13.722 second gap. 

The battle for third place continued throughout the race between Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and George Russell. Hamilton and Leclerc fought neck and neck for third, and  with 11 laps left in the race, Leclerc overtook Hamilton.  

The large amount of energy deployed fighting off his teammate led Hamilton to fall back into the pack behind Lando Norris.  

Leclerc was able to keep his position in third place and fight off Russell’s attempts to pass. 

Russell ended the race in fourth and gave his thoughts to formula1.com about what went wrong. 

“Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong,” Russell said. “Obviously we both made bad starts – mine was slightly less bad; Safety Car timing; [at the] restart, I got a harvest limit which meant I couldn’t recharge my battery, similar to what’s happened with some drivers at the race starts. 

I had no battery to restart – Lewis passed me – and then I faced another battery problem when Charles passed me. As I said, one lap different and we’d be having probably a very different conversation.” 

Currently, Russell is still sitting in second place in the world driver championship with 63 points. 

The next race is set for May 3 in Miami with a month off because of the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix and Saudi Arabian GP. You can stream the race on ESPN+ or watch it on the Formula 1 app.