How many first times
The one on Sunday in China was the GP of the first times. The Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s first success in Formula 1 – who became the second youngest winner in the history of the Circus and the first Italian in 20 years to triumph in a Grand Prix – and the first podium as a Ferrari driver for Lewis Hamiltonwho after an entire season spent in the dry managed to ‘clock in’ already in the second race of this revolutionary 2026.
That trend that makes you dream
In achieving his first podium in red, Hamilton respected his own ‘tradition’crossing the finish line in third place. Even in 2007 and 2013, the years in which he achieved his first podium with McLaren and Mercedes, the final placing at the finish line was the same.
With the Woking team the first top-3 arrived already at the first GP of his career, in Australia, behind Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso. For the first podium in Mercedes, however, it was necessary to wait for the second race of the season: Hamilton did it in Malaysia third behind Sebastian Vettel’s two Red Bulls and Mark Webber.
Reading the order of these two podiums there is a curious constant that emerges: the driver who won the race in which Hamilton went on the podium for the first time with a new team and then went on to become world champion at the end of the year. Better not to say anything yet to Antonelli, but of course, if the tradition could continue…
