Youngest ever world championship leader Kimi Antonelli thankful to Lady Luck following disastrous start.

Starting from pole, by the end of the opening lap the teenager was in sixth, and though he made short work of Lewis Hamlon, Lando Norris proved a little more difficult.

However, once past the McLaren, Antonelli set off in pursuit of Charles Leclerc, inheriting third when the Monegasque went for the undercut on Lap 17.

Next to pit was Oscar Piastri, who stopped shortly after being passed by Geroge Russell, thereby making it a Mercedes 1-2.

Russell pitted next time around, rejoining in fifth, but moments later the Safety Car was deployed following Oliver Bearmman's crash at Spoon.

This gave Antonelli a free pit stop, likewise Hamilton who was running second, and fourth-placed Pierre Gasly.

Rejoining the race still leading, Antonelli never looked back, building a 13s lead and posting successive fastest laps.

Nonetheless, at race end the teenager admitted to riding his luck.

"I's nice to be back, you know, on the top step," he said. "Obviously it's a very special win, a very special track but, you know, on one side I'm very happy, but on the other side I'm a bit disappointed with how the start went. It's an area where I need to work a lot because it's definitely not good enough and I'm just making my life a lot harder.

"So definitely a lot of work to do still, but I was very lucky, of course, with how the safety car, you know, with the timing of the safety car. But yeah, the pace was very, very strong and I'm really happy with that."

Asked about his start, he said: "I think I dropped the clutch a bit, you know, too deep, deeper than what I should have and obviously the tyres were also a bit colder. So obviously I went beyond the grip that was available and just lost a lot of places.

"I cannot say but I was very mad," he continued. "Probably, I think it was a bit difficult to get by when I was behind charge because we obviously had two completely different deployments and it was just hard to find the right place to overtake.

"Then he went back in the pit and then we improved a lot with the pace and obviously I was lucky with the safety car but without the safety car I don't know how the outcome would have been. Definitely it would have been a lot more difficult but you never know."

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