Does Kimi Antonelli need to become Formula 1 World Champion in 2026?
Image credit: Mercedes Petronas Formula 1 Team Media Centre
Following his third straight Grand Prix victory in Miami, does Kimi Antonelli need to become Formula 1 World Champion in 2026 to prove his worth?
Formula One returned from its hiatus at the start of May for what would now be the fourth round of the 2026 Season - the Miami Grand Prix. With such a gap between race weekends and the possibility for advancements and evolutions from each of the teams, the biggest question on everyone’s lips was a simple one; could anyone beat Mercedes?
Initially, the answer appeared to be McLaren. Bouncing back in style from their lackluster opening to the year, reigning World Champion Lando Norris not only secured pole position for the Sprint Race but then also converted it into victory - the first non Mercedes victory of the year so far. However, the Grand Prix on Sunday was another matter. Once more, it was the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli who took Pole Position. It was the Italian’s third in succession, following in the footsteps of only Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher before him. One of the nineteen year old’s biggest weaknesses however remains his race starts. Swamped as the lights went out by the likes of Leclerc, Verstappen and Russell, converting this latest pole position didn’t look immediately like a sure thing.
We should have known better.
Antonelli bided his time, combining his racecraft with Mercedes’ steadfast notion for excellent strategic decisions. Undercutting (pitting one lap before you expect your rival to pit with the intention of gaining an advantage over them) the McLaren ahead of him of Norris , Antonelli emerged from the pitlane ahead of the British driver. From there, Antonelli was able to slowly but surely pull a comfortable margin of 3.2 seconds ahead of his rival for the win. Beating Norris at the venue where Norris himself achieved his first Grand Prix win just two years before (but in his sixth season instead of his second) will surely have been a pleasant caveat for Antonelli to enjoy too.
With Norris keeping close to Antonelli, the gap from first to third place man Oscar Piastri by the end of the race was just over 27 seconds - a spine shuddering amount if you’re anyone bar Antonelli.
As he crossed the finish line, Kimi Antonelli became only the third driver in history to achieve his first three Grand Prix victories back-to-back-to-back. Last time that happened was across the end of the 1997 season and into the opening of the 1998 season with Mika Häkkinen winning the European, Australian and Brazilian Grand Prix. The only other instance occurred in the same decade when Damon Hill won the Hungarian, Belgian and Italian Grand Prix in 1993.
“This is just the beginning; the road is still long. But we’re working super hard, the team is doing an incredible job, and without them I wouldn’t be here – so it’s mainly thanks to them, my family.”
But now, Kimi Antonelli has surpassed Senna, Schumacher, Häkkinen and Hill by achieving something that they never did and essentially combining their respective records into a singular, more impressive one. Antonelli is now the only driver in history to secure both his first three Pole Positions in a row and then convert each of those to Grand Prix victory. To do so in just his second season in the sport is both impressive and concerning. It’s impressive because it’s never been done before. It’s concerning because if you’re one of the other twenty-one drivers on the grid, how do you defeat an opponent like that? To worry his competition further is the fact, as already mentioned, that this is only Antonelli’s sophomore year in Formula 1 and he’s still only nineteen years old. When you look at the longevity in the sport that the likes of Hamilton and Alonso display, the potential for what Antonelli could achieve in the future is staggering.
The only saving grace at the moment for both fans and drivers alike is how the start of this season so far mirrors that of last year. Then, it was Oscar Piastri who was leading the charge against his more experienced teammate of Lando Norris, who himself had been embedded within the team for longer and was considered to be the unofficial favourite of the Papaya outfit.
Sound familiar?
As Formula One departs from Miami and heads north to Canada, the question now becomes one of whether Antonelli can sustain this momentum moving forwards. Montreal was the scene of his debut podium in Formula One last year. But after that came Antonelli’s weakest portion of his maiden campaign. Regardless of what Antonelli is able to do, his teammate, George Russell will have to undergo a resurgence if he wants to remain firmly in the title fight.
In Miami, Russell qualified in fifth and finished in fourth. While fourth isn’t bad for Russell under normal circumstances, it’s his lowest result in any race format so far this year, the Silver Arrows driver still finds himself twenty points adrift of Antonelli in the standings. Much like Alex Palou’s competitors in IndyCar, when he’s out in front winning almost all of the time, a consistent top five finish simply isn’t enough. You have to beat him. You have to. It’s as simple as that.
“For me, that was his best race so far. It reminds me of his karting days in Formula 4.”
With so many Grand Prix coming up in quick order before the summer break, the prospect for Russell to be able to deliver a brutal return serve to Antonelli and break his teammate’s winning streak is an incredibly desirable one. If Russell can beat Antonelli at a venue such as Silverstone, Russell’s home race, it will also lend a wave of positive momentum to him that he could carry forward into other previously happy hunting grounds of Belgium and Hungary. If he loses there to Antonelli though, it would be a brutal blow that Russell would either not recover from or transform him into a driver we’ve only seen glimpses of before, such as in the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix. It’s arguably the first time since that modern classic that Russell has had a car emulating that kind of performance. If that materializes, we could be in for a blockbuster second half of the season as Russell attempts to duke it out until the end with Antonelli.
We’ve not seen too much wheel-to-wheel action between Russell and Antonelli either. As we move on to Canada, the crash between the two McLaren drivers from last year will come back to many people’s minds. Could we see something similar between the Mercedes drivers? Like McLaren too, it’s the first time in a number of years, since Mercedes have legitimately been in the hunt for both the Driver’s and Constructor’s Championships. Both drivers will want to be the top dog that made victories in both achievable. This is where the challenge for Mercedes lies in terms of management and where their experience from yesteryear, looking at you Hamilton and Rosberg, will come into play.
Regardless of what happens and which of the two drivers of Antonelli and Russell win the Championship, assuming of course that none of the other teams are able to do so which at present looks unlikely, the fact remains that Kimi Antonelli doesn’t need to achieve that feat this year. With 100 points to his name so far this season, he’s already achieved two thirds of his end total from last season and looks on course to eclipse that figure by season’s end. He’s proven to Russell, and everyone else on the grid, that he’s to be taken seriously. While age is no guarantee of experience and youth no guarantee of innovation, the raw speed and talent that it does provide is on full display for all to see. If Antonelli becomes Formula One World Champion in 2026, he’ll become the youngest Champion in the history of the sport. If he doesn’t, he’ll have the rest of his career to achieve that feat instead and the driver he replaced at Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, is testament to that. With Miami growing ever more distant in the rear view mirror now with each passing day, one thing is certain; Kimi Antonelli has announced himself to the world and his message is not that he’s here to win. Like the titans of the sport before him, Antonelli is here to dominate.
Time will tell if anyone can stop him.