Kimi Antonelli’s record-breaking Formula 1 world championship triumph was highlighted by many superb performances. But which one was his best?

Antonelli duly wrapped up his maiden F1 crown in Mexico with four rounds to spare – becoming the youngest-ever world champion in the process.

Our writers have picked out the moments they believe turned the Italian from a contender into a world champion in waiting.

Melbourne crash response offered first glimpse of new Kimi – Filip Cleeren

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

It may sound odd to pick one of Antonelli’s few defeats against Russell, but his runner-up spot to the Briton at the season opener in Melbourne showed me the first tranche of evidence that the Antonelli who had rocked up Australia wasn’t the same insecure rookie who had struggled through spells of 2025.

The Albert Park weekend was actually one of Antonelli’s more challenging weekends, suffering a heavy 25G crash in FP3 that looked set to derail his weekend. It may have done a year prior, but this time the young Italian stayed cool and collected. And as Mercedes was able to pull off a full rebuild just in time for qualifying, Antonelli was able to shake off the incident and take second on the grid behind Russell despite not being able to finetune the car’s set-up.

In the race Antonelli then suffered from a poor getaway with no battery power as he was swamped and dropped to sixth, but Mercedes’ pace advantage was thus that he was able to make a controlled recovery to second.

“If something like that had happened to me last year, the rest of the weekend would probably have been very compromised,” Antonelli reflected in Austin. “When you have one year of experience, one full year in Formula 1, you come back the next year and you just feel better. Things happen a bit more easily, let’s say, also because you’re not forcing them to happen as much.

“I kind of took a step back in that regard and just tried to focus on the important things and enjoy the process as much as possible. Definitely, mentally I’ve been in a much happier place this year compared to last season. And especially when you’ve been working with the same group of people for one year, going into year two is a big difference as well. You know how to move on together as a team, especially from difficult situations.”

Canadian GP – Antonelli’s real statement drive – Ewan Gale

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

By the time F1 had rocked up to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Antonelli had already proven that he possesses some of the traits needed to be successful.

Yet this was the first real ding-dong battle we had seen between the Italian and an adversary that meant something. Fighting for the lead with Russell throughout the first half of the race, we saw that Antonelli was not going to be a pushover for his more experienced team-mate in the race for the title.

Let’s not pretend that it was perfect racecraft – far from it. Both drivers left the road and came close to taking each other out – crucially avoiding what would have made for an angry Toto Wolff.

Antonelli grabbed track position off the line in damp conditions and initially fended off Russell’s advances, only for the Briton to sweep into the lead on lap six, almost being swiped off-track by the #12 as the now-trailing Mercedes locked up into the final chicane.

What was impressive was that Antonelli put that to one side and kept up his assault. He didn’t shy away after such a sizeable mistake that could have ended in disaster, it was a real show of the tenacity and exuberance we have come to love from him.

This was showcased best by an ultimately unsuccessful dive up the inside at Turn 1 on lap 13 as this regulation set’s yo-yo racing showed its head. Side-by-side into the last chicane on lap 24 and inches – perhaps centimetres – from contact, Antonelli stayed in the fight for as long as possible before bailing, and then complaining on team radio, much like we often here from four-time champion Max Verstappen.

The fight was brought to an early end when Russell suffered a mechanical failure on lap 30 while still ahead and whether he would have won or not had his team-mate remained in the race – and reminiscent of how Nico Rosberg came out fighting against Lewis Hamilton in 2016 – Antonelli had set out his stall and delivered a statement; ‘I can stand up to Russell one-to-one’.

His most perfect performance of his championship triumph? Nowhere near. But the message sent to team-mate Russell and those watching on spoke loud enough.

Monaco magic showed Antonelli could match aggression with precision – Stuart Codling

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Mercedes

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

From his maiden appearance in FP1 at Monza in 2024 onwards, Antonelli has been among the most exciting drivers to watch. Often you could argue that he has tended towards a harum-scarum style, perpetually on the limit and sometimes beyond it.

In the year that he became the first Italian world champion since Alberto Ascari, Antonelli showed another element of his craft which aligned him more closely with his predecessor. In an era of flexing chassis suspended on leaf springs and riding on skinny tyres, Ascari was a beacon of consistency. Lap after lap he would hit the same line through each corner with unruffled finesse.

Monaco, a track where taking liberties with the barriers results in rapid elimination, was where Antonelli noticeably stepped up his game. On a weekend where Ferrari was expected to be dominant, Antonelli set pole position and raced to his fifth consecutive victory, pressured constantly from behind.

“We were surprised ourselves about that speed,” Wolff said after the race. “The laps he was pulling, the times, they were two seconds faster than the McLarens, and a solid plus one second faster than Ferrari. And it was like clockwork. Why that is on a track that we would have not considered to be our strengths before the weekend, I don’t know.”

The Spa weekend that Antonelli stopped any momentum Russell was starting to build – Ed Hardy

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images

For the early part of the 2026 season, even during Antonelli’s winning run, I was still adamant that George Russell would become world champion. I found it hard to believe that Antonelli really had overturned such a large gap between the pair – 169 points in 2025 – over just one winter and that when faced with adversity, the Italian’s lack of experience would show. 

Those doubts were removed in Belgium: arguably the first time he’d arrived at a grand prix this year on the back foot. In two of the prior three races – Austria and Britain – Antonelli had suffered non-scores due to car problems, while Russell took a win and two runner-up finishes to close the gap to 25 points.

The Briton had the momentum and with 14 rounds still to play, his deficit was hardly anything. Just look at last season, when late on Oscar Piastri flustered a larger gap of 34 points at the sudden moment he lost momentum to Lando Norris. 

But in Belgium, Antonelli stayed calm and restored the order. He topped two of three practice sessions, took pole, and overcame an untimely VSC by overtaking brief leader Charles Leclerc for victory. 

For Russell, he qualified five tenths off Antonelli in fifth and retired after a lap one clash with Hamilton’s Ferrari. The deficit to his Mercedes team-mate rose to 50 points and from there, it was quite obvious where the title would go. 

It is not about how one falls, but about how they get back up, and Antonelli did that perfectly at Spa. A true champion-like weekend.

Monza: A recovery for the ages – Ben Vinel

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

Of Antonelli’s stellar drives in 2026, this likely was the most formidable.

The odds really weren’t in his favour. Norris had driven the upgraded McLaren to victory in the previous two rounds; Mercedes decided to give Antonelli a new power unit for his home race, taking the brunt of a back-of-the-grid start at a Monza track where overtaking theoretically is easier than anywhere else.

Antonelli qualified just seventh as Pierre Gasly took a shock pole, but that was simply down to the Italian giving team-mate Russell a tow in Q3, as his own result didn’t matter in light of the grid penalty.

Antonelli climbed to 12th within the opening two laps of the race, after which it was red-flagged for Leclerc’s high-speed crash; he gained another four positions at the second start, then passed Arvid Lindblad and Norris on the next lap.

Subsequent moves on Gasly, Hamilton and Piastri meant Antonelli was hot on Verstappen’s and Russell’s tails by lap 15. He made short work of them both, snatching the lead in Turn 1 on lap 18.

Russell did put up a decent challenge thereafter with a breathtaking battle, but the race was neutralised by the virtual safety car on lap 28. Antonelli, on mediums, pitted for another set of the yellow-walled compound; Russell, on hards, didn’t.

Antonelli rejoined 14 seconds adrift of his team-mate; again, he made his way past Gasly, Norris, Hamilton and Piastri, catching the sister Silver Arrow with six laps remaining. A trip through the gravel in wheel-to-wheel combat only briefly delayed the 20-year-old’s triumph, and he took victory from 19th on the grid – only John Watson ever did better than this, winning the 1983 United States Grand Prix West from 22nd. Antonelli’s fastest lap was seven tenths quicker than anyone else’s.

“After the second restart I was up there and I knew I could have a shot for the win,” he said. “So, definitely I believed in it, especially when I was behind George.

“But it was really difficult to break away, with the tow being so strong. At the end, we pitted and he stayed out and he struggled a bit with his tyres, while with fresher tyres I was able to increase the pace and, yeah, managed to win it.”

Was this the best race of his career? “The best one has yet to come, but I feel like, yeah, it was one of the best races I’ve done so far, and one that I will remember forever.”

Bouncing Baku: Antonelli fell in Azerbaijan, but quickly got up – Jake Boxall-Legge

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Gabriel Bortoleto, Audi F1 Team, Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Selecting the race where Antonelli made his own life incredibly difficult is, without context, a seemingly odd choice to make. Nothing is ever context-free, however.

When he clipped the inside wall at Turn 1 during the first stage of qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Antonelli had already guaranteed himself a path to Q2 – but no further, as Mercedes knew the damage couldn’t be repaired in time. He was guaranteed to start 16th, and with clear parallels to the horror-show weekend Piastri had endured a year before. That race is generally regarded to be the turning point in the championship, as Piastri unceremoniously dumped himself out of qualifying and, a day later, the race on the first lap.

But Antonelli was of no mind to entertain such parallels. He knew that the Baku weekend was now about mitigating the damage to his title lead, since Russell had uncovered a rich vein of performance and on course to win the grand prix. To limit Russell’s victory prize, Antonelli had to stay in the race and made the decision to drive within himself and take plenty of margin in the opening laps. After that, he could let the Mercedes chassis underneath him do the work in bringing him through the field. He even lost a position at the start but, unlike Piastri’s self-immolation in 2025, he remained in the race.

With care, Antonelli mounted a series of slide-rule passes on the midfielders to ease into the top 10, and the second-half safety car produced by Alex Albon presented Antonelli with an opportunity to close up to the rest of the pack and reclaim further points. His cause was helped further by the restart fracas, produced by Franco Colapinto, which took Norris and Gasly out of Antonelli’s way; Hamilton then fell prey to Antonelli a few laps after the restart.

It was a masterclass in damage limitation, one admittedly helped by drivers ahead coming into strife, but Antonelli could easily have been claimed by an incident over the 50-lap tour around the Baku streets. That he didn’t, and ultimately limited Russell to only a 15-point gain on what could have been a disastrous weekend, ensured Antonelli had dug himself out of a pretty big hole. 

F1’s new star showed what he’s really made of in the Lone Star State – Ronald Vording

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Alex Bierens de Haan / LAT Images via Getty Images

Although his charge through the field at Monza was his most memorable performance of the year – one of those days when simply being at the track already felt special – the US GP was probably his most impressive race.

In Austin, the entire media day revolved around just one subject: the possibility of clinching the world title in the Lone Star State. Admittedly, it was hardly Abu Dhabi 2021, and yes, Antonelli’s enormous lead took away much of the pressure, but there was still pressure on the shoulders of a 20-year-old who was only in his second F1 season.

It would have been very easy to lose his head during the weekend of his first opportunity to clinch the title, and given his enormous lead, it would not even have had any consequences. But the fact that Antonelli delivered his best performance precisely that weekend says a great deal about what he is made of.

To be precise, Sunday in Austin was revealing for three reasons. The first moment came on the grid. This writer spent some time standing next to Antonelli’s Mercedes W17. The world champion-in-waiting looked up at the big screens, where he spotted himself and some of his fans. It brought a smile to his face and prompted a friendly wave. It is characteristic of his youthful enthusiasm and, as Verstappen rightly pointed out in Mexico, perhaps his greatest quality as a person is that he remains his friendly and playful self despite the success and pressure. Let’s hope that aspect never changes.

The second way in which Austin was revealing is even more important: his pure performance, and therefore how Antonelli delivered on track. Despite the pressure and perhaps the nerves surrounding his impending world title, the Italian delivered flawlessly. In fact, on the slightly uphill grid at the Circuit of the Americas, the youngster arguably made his best start of the year. His pace afterwards was equally impressive, and he had made it his personal mission not to pick up a single-track limits infringement, something he duly managed apart from one little moment involving Carlos Sainz.

The overall package resulted in his most complete and mature F1 race to date, on the very weekend of his first opportunity to clinch the title. It says a great deal about his capabilities, but that leads to the third point: Antonelli refused to take the credit himself. When I asked him in the post-race press conference exactly how he deals with the pressure, Antonelli did what he always does: rather than pointing to himself, he pointed to his father, the rest of his family and the people around him at Mercedes.

It is highly commendable and modest, but Austin made one thing clear: Antonelli himself deserves considerably more credit than he was willing to take. Modesty is a good quality, however, so he doesn’t need to say it. We’ll do that for him.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Alex Bierens de Haan / LAT Images via Getty Images

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