Antonelli and Russell chase a win on PETRONAS home ground, on a track they barely know

SEPANG: The two most dominant drivers of the season, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, carry Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS's hopes of winning in front of a Malaysian crowd this weekend, though neither has ever raced at the Sepang International Circuit (SIC).

Antonelli, 20, leads the world championship with 302 points, and Russell, 28, is second with 236, setting up Sunday's Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia as the latest chapter in an intra-team title fight.

Mercedes has won 11 races this season. Antonelli has eight of them, including China, Japan, Monaco and Italy, while Russell has won in Australia, Austria and Azerbaijan.

The team also leads the constructors' championship with 538 points, 160 ahead of second-placed Ferrari.

Sepang carries extra weight for Mercedes. PETRONAS, the team's title and technical partner since 2010, is Malaysia's national oil company.

The last time Mercedes won at Sepang was in 2014, with Lewis Hamilton.

The youngest championship leader in F1 history

Antonelli, born in Bologna, Italy, on Aug 25, 2006, is only in his second Formula One season but has already rewritten parts of the record book.

He became the youngest driver ever to lead the world championship, at 19, after the Japanese Grand Prix this year, and the youngest to take pole position when he won in China.

If he wins the title this season, he will become the youngest world champion in the sport's history, beating the mark set by Sebastian Vettel, who was 23 when he won in 2010.

Victory at Sepang would be Antonelli's ninth of the season and would stretch his lead over Russell to at least 73 points, with seven races left.

It would also make him one of the youngest winners at Sepang. That record still belongs to Max Verstappen, who won the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix a day after turning 20, about a month younger than Antonelli will be on Sunday.

His weekend in Baku, though, was a reminder that the lead is not yet secure. He crashed in qualifying, started 16th and finished fifth.

"This weekend was my worst of the year by far in terms of performance," he said after the race.

Russell's best shot at a first title

For Russell, 2026 is the strongest chance yet at a first world title, seven years after his debut with Williams in 2019 and five seasons into his time at Mercedes.

His win from pole in Baku cut Antonelli's lead to 66 points, with 208 still available across the eight remaining races, Sepang included.

Russell has made clear he does not count his teammate out. "Obviously, you can't discount Kimi," he said before the Baku race.

Toto Wolff, the team principal, said in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday that both drivers would get an equal chance, but that the team's interests would come first.

Simulators, a PlayStation and the weather

Both drivers have prepared for Sepang largely on the team's simulator.

Antonelli said the track looked fast and flowing, with long corners that are far from easy, while Russell recalled Sepang as his favourite circuit on the PlayStation as a child.

Both expect tyre wear, heat and the possibility of heavy rain to decide the race, and Mercedes' drivers have little experience of this year's cars in the wet.

The FIA has declared a heat hazard for the race after forecasts showed the heat index exceeding 31 degrees Celsius, making driver cooling systems mandatory on every car.

With eight races left, Sepang could decide whether Antonelli pulls further clear or Russell reignites the fight, and either way it will happen on PETRONAS's home turf.