Mercedes star Kimi Antonelli becomes youngest F1 champion.
Kimi Antonelli is the 2026 Formula 1 World Champion. The 20-year-old Mercedes driver finished third at the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday, November 1, ending a 73-year wait for an Italian champion and becoming the youngest title winner in F1 history. The result at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, according to Formula1.com, hands the Bologna-born driver his maiden Drivers’ Championship in just his second season in the sport.
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Antonelli arrived in Mexico City needing only a ninth-place finish to guarantee the crown, regardless of what his closest rivals, Lewis Hamilton and team-mate George Russell, achieved. He delivered far more than that. Starting fourth, he turned a chaotic 71-lap race into a podium and a permanent place in the record books.
Antonelli Seals the 2026 F1 Championship in Mexico City
Max Verstappen won the race for Red Bull, taking his sixth victory at the Mexican circuit and holding off Hamilton’s Ferrari to the flag. The Dutchman crossed the line in 2:20:28.772, with Hamilton just 0.799 seconds behind and Antonelli 4.006 seconds adrift in third. Charles Leclerc finished fourth, ahead of Lando Norris, while Russell took sixth and Oscar Piastri recovered to seventh after a difficult qualifying.
Antonelli went into the weekend as the overwhelming favourite. He had already won nine grands prix this season, including the United States Grand Prix a week earlier, and the title arithmetic left his rivals needing a near-perfect weekend in Mexico. Only Hamilton and Russell remained in mathematical contention, and neither could stop him unless Antonelli collapsed down the order.
By the time the chequered flag fell, the mathematics were irrelevant. The new champion had not merely survived the afternoon, he had won a fight for the podium in front of a packed crowd.
Verstappen Wins as Antonelli Passes Leclerc After the Restart
The race was anything but clean. Russell was handed a 10-second penalty for spinning Isack Hadjar around on the opening lap, and the incident set the tone for a disrupted afternoon. Antonelli, meanwhile, ran at the front through the first half, and by lap 38 he held a lead of roughly nine seconds over Norris. Verstappen, Leclerc and Hamilton were all closing in behind, with the top five covered by nearly 15 seconds.
A red flag then reshuffled the order. When racing resumed, Antonelli was running fourth and needed only to bring the car home to take the title. Instead, he produced a decisive move on Leclerc, lunging up the inside to claim third place. The Ferrari driver had locked up at the first braking zone and heavily flat-spotted his tyres, and he lost out before managing to hold off Norris for fourth.
Verstappen made the most of the disruption to secure victory, while Hamilton recovered to take second. Behind them, the Italian completed the podium and the celebrations began, with the crowd erupting as he took the flag on the final lap of a dramatic race.
Youngest F1 World Champion in History
Antonelli was 20 years and 68 days old when he secured the title, breaking the record Sebastian Vettel set in 2010 at the age of 23. The new mark beats that benchmark by more than three years, a margin few expected to see broken so emphatically.
The achievement is all the more remarkable given how recently he arrived in the sport. Antonelli made his Formula 1 debut at the 2025 Australian Grand Prix, took his first victory at the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix, and within two seasons has gone from rookie to world champion. His nine wins from the first 19 rounds of 2026 underline how completely he and Mercedes have dominated the campaign.
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The moment carried extra weight because of who stood alongside him on the podium. Verstappen and Hamilton, two of the sport’s greatest drivers and both former world champions, finished directly ahead of him, and both were among those who celebrated with the new champion after the race.
First Italian F1 Champion Since Ascari in 1953
The title also ends a long drought for Italian motorsport. The last Italian to win the Drivers’ Championship was Alberto Ascari, who took his second consecutive crown with Ferrari in 1953. In the 73 years since, no driver from Italy had managed to lift the trophy until Antonelli.
For a country with such a deep racing heritage, the wait had become a defining part of the sport’s story. Generations of Italian fans watched other nations produce champions, and the absence of an Italian name on the trophy became a talking point at every Monza weekend.
Antonelli, who grew up in Bologna and won his home grand prix in Italy this season, has now closed that chapter and opened a new one. His win at Monza already hinted at what was coming, and Mexico City delivered the final and decisive proof.
What Comes Next for Antonelli and Mercedes
With the championship decided, the season still has rounds left on the calendar. The Brazilian Grand Prix in São Paulo is next on November 8, followed by Las Vegas on November 22, Qatar on November 29 and Abu Dhabi on December 6.
Antonelli will now race as the reigning world champion, free of title pressure, while Mercedes turns its attention to finishing the year strongly. For a driver who only needed ninth place in Mexico and delivered a podium instead, the closing rounds promise more of the same ambition.
Whatever follows, the 2026 season will be remembered for one result above all others. A 20-year-old from Bologna has taken the sport’s biggest prize, and his name now sits alongside the immortals of Formula 1.