Mercedes will "protect" Kimi Antonelli from talk about a possible world championship push, team principal Toto Wolff said after the 19-year-old's Japanese Grand Prix victory.

Despite a poor first lap seeing him give up pole position and drop to sixth, Antonelli recovered to make it back-to-back wins, having also triumphed in China last time out.

There was an element of fortune about his win as a crash from Oliver Bearman led to the introduction of a safety car, which allowed him to pit faster than his rivals and jump back into first place, which he never surrendered after racing resumed. 

Antonelli is now the youngest-ever driver to lead the F1 championship, surpassing a record that had been held by Lewis Hamilton since 2007, when he was 22.

He is also just the second Italian driver to win back-to-back races from pole, after Alberto Ascari, who last did so way back in 1953, in the Netherlands and Argentina.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the race, Antonelli said: "It feels pretty good! Of course, it's too early to think about the championship, but we are in a good way.

"I had a terrible start. I need to check what happened. Then I was lucky with the safety car to be in the lead, but after that, the pace was incredible.

"It was really nice. On the second stint I felt very good with the car. I'm very pleased with that."

The Young Wolf victorious  pic.twitter.com/9atymb5qa5

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 29, 2026

Despite Antonelli showcasing terrific development to lead team-mate George Russell in the standings by nine points, Wolff was cautious about his ambitions for the season.

"It's incredible. Yesterday, he was 14 and today he was 19," Wolff said. "He's won two races in a row in F1 and we are really happy about the development that he's taken.

"We need to protect him now from people talking about world championships."

Russell, meanwhile, was left to rue the timing of the safety car. Having described himself as "handcuffed" by the setup of his car ahead of the race, he outlined his belief that he would have earned his second win of the season if racing had stopped one lap earlier.

"Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong," Russell, who ultimately finished fourth, said. "Obviously we both made bad starts – mine was slightly less bad.

"The 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 race starts.

"I had no battery to restart, Lewis passed me, and then I faced another battery problem when Charles [Leclerc] passed me. One lap different and we'd be having a very different conversation."

The F1 season will now pause for over a month due to the cancellation of races in the Middle East, with the Miami Grand Prix next up.