Antonelli makes history becoming F1's youngest Drivers' Champion
Kimi Antonelli became Formula 1's youngest world champion on 1 November, finishing third at the Mexico City Grand Prix. He was 20 years and 68 days old.
The race did the work for him. Max Verstappen won a chaotic, red-flagged afternoon at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and Lewis Hamilton took second after starting from pole. Antonelli completed the podium after passing Charles Leclerc at the standing restart. Neither Russell nor Hamilton won, so his result was a bonus.
The numbers frame it. He clinched in the 19th of 23 rounds, with four to spare. He took Sebastian Vettel's record of 23 years and 134 days, set in 2010, and became the first Italian champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953. He is also the fifth driver to wrap up the title in Mexico City, after John Surtees, Denny Hulme, Graham Hill and Hamilton.
A Mercedes driver at twelve
Mercedes signed Antonelli to its junior programme in April 2019, when he was 12. That same year he won the WSK Euro Series and Super Master Series in OK Junior. A year later he became the youngest senior champion in the European OK class, at fourteen.
Single-seaters brought more of the same. In 2022 he swept Italian and ADAC Formula 4 with PREMA. In 2023 he took the Formula Regional Middle East and European titles in a single year, winning five races in the European series.
Then Mercedes made an unusual call. It skipped Formula 3 altogether and sent him straight into Formula 2 for 2024. PREMA struggled with the new car. Antonelli still finished sixth, ahead of teammate Oliver Bearman. His wins at Silverstone and in Hungary made him the youngest multiple winner in F2 history.
On 31 August 2024, a day after crashing in FP1, Mercedes named him Lewis Hamilton's successor for 2025. He was the first rookie since Hamilton himself in 2007 to land a seat at a leading team.
A rookie year of highs and bruises
Antonelli made his debut at the 2025 Australian Grand Prix, aged 18, the third-youngest starter in F1 history. The records came quickly. At Japan he became the youngest driver to lead a Grand Prix and to set a fastest lap. At Miami on 3 May 2025 he took sprint pole, the youngest polesitter in any format.
His first podium followed in Canada, a third place. Then the season turned. The European swing went flat, and Toto Wolff called his Imola weekend “underwhelming”.
He found his feet again late. Second in São Paulo, his best result of the year, and another podium in Las Vegas closed the season. He finished seventh in the standings with 150 points.
A new car, a first defeat and five in a row
The 2026 regulations reset the grid, and Mercedes arrived with the fastest car. In Melbourne, Antonelli crashed heavily in FP3 yet still lined up second. He finished second in a Mercedes one-two, behind teammate George Russell.
It was the last time Russell beat him for a while.
China came next. Antonelli took his maiden pole, the youngest in F1 history, and the next day his first Grand Prix win, making him the second-youngest winner of all time. Japan and Miami followed, all three won from pole, lights to flag.
Canada was different. He started second, behind Russell. Russell’s battery failed on lap 30, Antonelli took the lead and the win, his fourth in a row.
Monaco made it five. He won from pole and became the youngest winner in the race’s history. The result was his 13th career podium, level with Jochen Rindt and Gilles Villeneuve.
Where it slipped
The streak ended in Barcelona on 14 June. He was running second behind Hamilton, having just passed Russell at Turn 1, when the car stopped on track. It was his first retirement of the season. He admitted he felt “a bit empty”. He was classified 16th.
Silverstone hurt more. He started on pole and finished 15th. The day before, he had beaten Hamilton in a thrilling sprint. Both zero-point weekends came down to mechanical failures, not driver error.
Not every bad day was the car. In Austria Russell beat him from pole and Antonelli had to settle for third. In Baku he started 16th and finished fifth.
The response
Belgium on 19 July answered Silverstone. A clean win from pole. In Hungary he went from seventh to third. At Zandvoort he led 32 laps and took second.
Then came Monza. Antonelli started 19th and won. A week later in Madrid he won again at the new Madring for his eighth victory of the season, pushing his lead to 81 points.
Russell’s season was now unravelling. At the Bahrain Grand Prix in Sepang on 4 October, his power unit failed. Antonelli finished second from third on the grid, behind Max Verstappen. The gap stood at 84 points.
Singapore began in the wet. On Saturday Russell crashed out at the end of the first lap of the sprint, and Antonelli finished fourth. His lead grew to 89 points.
On Sunday Russell started 19th with an engine penalty and recovered only to ninth. Verstappen led throughout for his first Singapore win, with Charles Leclerc second and Antonelli completing the podium. Antonelli said he was “really happy with a podium in the end”.
Fifteen points took him to 340, a 102-point lead. Austin on 25 October offered his first chance to win the title.
Austin stopped just short. Antonelli turned pole into his ninth win of the season, ahead of Leclerc and Verstappen. Wolff called it “the race of a champion who isn’t the champion yet.” Hamilton finished fourth and Russell eighth, enough to keep both alive.
Antonelli left Texas 123 points clear of Russell and 124 clear of Hamilton. A ninth place or better in Mexico City would make him champion whatever they did.
The title in Mexico City
Qualifying did not go to plan. Hamilton took his first Ferrari pole by nine thousandths of a second from Russell, with Leclerc third. Antonelli was fifth, almost two tenths off the pace, and admitted he felt tense. A one-place grid penalty for Verstappen moved him up to fourth.
The start belonged to Ferrari’s internal fight. Hamilton held the lead into Turn 1, then Leclerc dived down the inside and took it at Turn 4 by cutting across the grass and pushing his teammate off. Verstappen used the argument to pass Hamilton for second. Leclerc was handed a five-second penalty for the move.
Antonelli kept clear of it and settled into fourth. Russell, his only remaining rival with a realistic chance of catching him, made a poor start and fell behind. He later took a 10-second penalty for a collision at Turn 6 that dropped Isack Hadjar to 19th.
From there Antonelli drove the afternoon he needed. He ran a long first stint, led while the front-runners pitted and came in on lap 44 to rejoin fourth.
A lap later Valtteri Bottas’s Cadillac hit the barriers at Turn 1 with a suspension failure. The Safety Car became a red flag on lap 46. Race Control restored the positions lost by drivers who had stopped under it, and Antonelli lined up fourth for a standing restart, behind Verstappen, Leclerc and Hamilton.
The restart decided his day. Hamilton went for Leclerc at once and took second. Leclerc locked up, and Antonelli passed him for third. He held the place through a second Safety Car on lap 60, after Arvid Lindblad and Oscar Piastri made contact.
Verstappen won. Hamilton, the man whose seat Antonelli took, finished second. Antonelli took the flag third, with Leclerc fourth, Lando Norris fifth and Russell sixth. Neither Mercedes rival had won, and the title was his.
He finished the day on 380 points, with Verstappen second in the standings 119 behind.
Twelve years old, then champion
Mercedes backed a twelve-year-old in 2019. Seven years on, that bet has paid off with a world champion who is still only 20.
Nine wins, seven poles and 16 podiums in 2026 put him at the top of the sport, with four races still to run. So did the harder days: the car that stopped in Barcelona, the pole that ended in 15th at Silverstone, the start from 16th at Baku.
He lost races, and he answered each time. In Mexico City he answered the last question, from fourth on the grid, without needing to win.
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