Kimi Antonelli became the youngest Formula 1 world champion in the sport’s history when he clinched the title at the Mexico City Grand Prix. How did he do it?
So, he’s done it.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli is the Formula 1 World Champion. And you can’t say that he did not deserve it, in so many ways.
There are many reasons why this is quite an emotional event for me to witness. I’m old enough to remember abandoning my own dreams [or were they delusions of grandeur?] of being a Formula 1 driver in a year before Antonelli was even born. Therefore, he is the youngest-ever World Champion, and by default, makes me feel like an old failure.
He’s also the first from the great nation of Italy since Alberto Ascari in 1953 to become World Champion, writing a chapter in the history books that see him leap over the Italian drivers of my childhood, such as Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli.
He’s also just a nice lad. He’s unfailingly polite and always carries himself with a disposition so sunny that you need Factor 50 and sunglasses to merely be in his presence.
And on top of that, he has done it off the back of a debut season that saw him pilloried by a variety of circles within F1, be it Helmut Marko or pundits of the television and armchair kind. I can scarcely think of a driver who has completed such a turnaround from appearing so down and out – both in and out of the car – to being on top of the world in barely over a year.
Understated beginnings lead to momentum
2025 ended on a fairly high note for Antonelli, having taken two podiums late on in the campaign, albeit one of them coming off the back of the double-disqualification for McLaren in Vegas. His performance at Interlagos was astounding – taking on a personally brand-new track and out-driving teammate and de factor Mercedes team leader George Russell all weekend, as well as a valiant duel with Max Verstappen in the closing stages.
And, of course, he would have naturally buoyed by the fact that the Silver Arrows were pertinently aware of its superiority as far back as the unofficial ‘shakedown week’ in Barcelona. A couple of wins, perhaps? All as Russell would utilise his guile and experience to saunter to an expected maiden championship of his own.
That looked to be even more like reality in Melbourne, when Russell clinched a season-opening victory. “I like this car, I like this engine,” he triumphantly and gleefully exclaimed on the cool-down lap radio exchange.
He may have spoken a little too soon, for it seemed afterwards, that Antonelli’s grasp of the W17 would be a little tighter than that of his proven Grand Prix-winner partner’s.
I’m sure a few of Antonelli’s naysayers still felt vindicated in their opinions over that weekend, in fact, as he had a sizable off on the exit of Turn 2, writing off the Mercedes and miraculously having it repaired just in time for qualifying. But what came next was the wave of youth impudence that left Russell, and all of us, dumbstruck.
A duck-breaking victory in Shanghai was followed by a dominant showing in Suzuka, and with another win coming in Miami, we all began to wonder where and when Russell would start to creep back into contention.
I also confess that, given his tender age and comparative lack of experience, I still wondered – even as an Antonelli sympathiser in 2025 – when he might make that first big clanger that could dent his confidence and give Russell the impetus to mount a comeback. But it never came.
Monaco mastery, blips and Spa redemption
He mastered Monaco, a true earning of spurs for any racing driver, and maybe this was when we all began to think that the engraver could start etching his name into the trophy now. A momentary blip came in Canada, where he exuded some immature but textbook toy-throwing from the pram that was the W17 when duelling with Russell for Sprint victory.
He may have lost the Grand Prix, too, if it were not for some wretched luck on Russell’s side, his car breaking down midway through the race. And, in fairness to the King’s Lynn man, he has most certainly been afforded more misfortune than Antonelli over the course of the season, but even the steely self-confidence of Russell’s must have started to feel kinked, even by the time he scored a Silverstone podium when Antonelli suffered his own case of bad luck, tearfully retiring the car as it became terminally troubled, handing victory to Charles Leclerc.
Conversely, Antonelli must have started to feel invincible by the time he sat his sweaty tush on what my Deputy James and I refer to as the ‘Graham Norton sofa’ in the press conference room, after taking another victory. Russell had been punted off at the start by former teammate and the man Antonelli replaced – Lewis Hamilton – leaving him a further 25 points behind.
Spa-Francorchamps had, perhaps, been his lowest ebb the year before. Spinning and controlling the car as if the steering wheel had been forged of two hot potatoes, Antonelli was dumped out of qualifying for both the Sprint and Grand Prix early. This was in my mind when I took the microphone in the press conference and asked him if he would have believed it if he had been told this is where he would be, 373 days on.
“No, absolutely not,” he said. “Last year here, I probably reached the bottom, so it was a very difficult weekend for me mentally. But this year was definitely a lot better. If you had asked me last year at this moment, I probably would have said no.”
A special Monza win lays foundations for a Mexico City victory lap
For me, and I’m sure many others, the moment of Antonelli’s season was not the maiden victory, nor was it even the title-winning moment. It was Monza.
I have been cynical about these new regulations, and will continue to be so until these six cylinders of hybrid codswallop are banished to Room 101, but regardless of what’s in the cars and whose are better than others, Antonelli’s charge from the back of the field at his home Grand Prix was one of the generational drives of the modern era.
Italian drivers are somewhat overlooked in Italy, as it’s all about Ferrari and nothing else. But you know someone is special when the tifosi are acknowledging them as one of their own and chanting his name as he stood aloft on the podium, now a man and not the boy he was two years before, when he shunted Hamilton’s car in FP1.
One could suggest that this title would not have been won by Antonelli had we still be racing in the ground-effect era, and Russell would have cleaned up had Mercedes been in a position of similar superiority. You’d probably be right, but these new regulations have shaken up F1 so much that it has, in many ways, felt like a clean slate for the whole grid, whether you are a rookie or a seven-time World Champion. These cars have at times shown us that they literally have a mind of their own, and they are not the raw and pure machines many of us yearn for, but grappling with them has been a challenge for all 23 drivers that have competed this season, and Antonelli has been one of the best at getting it right.
Whether he will go on to win more titles or whether this one transpires to be his only one, Kimi Antonelli has defied all expectation and logic in 2026, and as a result, makes him one of the most unique of the 36 men to become Formula 1 World Champion.
In context: that number is only 12 higher than the number of people that have been to the moon.
And we’re all over the moon for you, Kimi.
Grazie mille. Bravo.
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