Kimi Antonelli becomes youngest Formula One world champion at 20 after Mexico City podium
Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli finished third in a red-flagged Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday to become Formula One’s youngest world champion at 20 years and 68 days, and Italy’s first champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953.
Kimi Antonelli became Formula One’s youngest world champion on Sunday, when a third-place finish for Mercedes in a red-flagged and restarted Mexico City Grand Prix put the title beyond the reach of his rivals with four races still to run. At 20 years and 68 days old, the Italian beat the previous record by more than three years and ended a 73-year wait for an Italian champion.
The race itself was won by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, with seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton second for Ferrari, but the championship story belonged to the driver in third. Antonelli had gone into the weekend 123 points clear of his Mercedes team-mate George Russell and 124 ahead of Hamilton, so he needed only two points — a ninth-place finish or better — to clinch the title outright. Third place, and a 16th podium finish of the season, settled the matter with room to spare.
His reaction, carried by Reuters, AFP and other outlets, was immediate and emotional. A tearful Antonelli sobbed with joy over the team radio as he took the chequered flag at the high-altitude Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, saying: “We did it, we did it.” On the podium, Verstappen and Hamilton — 11 world titles between them — hoisted the new champion in the air, a striking image of one generation handing over to the next.
The scale of the record is what makes this title historic rather than merely impressive. The previous youngest champion was Germany’s Sebastian Vettel, who won the first of his four titles with Red Bull in 2010 at the age of 23. Antonelli is therefore the first champion to win the title as a teenager-turned-20-year-old in the modern era, and only the third Italian champion since the championship began in 1950, after Giuseppe Farina in 1950 and Alberto Ascari, whose last title came in 1953.
Antonelli’s route to the title explains why so many in the sport had marked him out early. Born on 25 August 2006, he joined the Mercedes development programme at the age of 11, made his Formula One debut at 18 last year, and replaced Hamilton at Mercedes when the seven-time champion left for Ferrari in 2025. In only his second season he has won nine races, including Monaco, Monza and Spa, and at one stage reeled off five victories in a row from China to Monaco — a run Reuters described as ripping up the pre-season script, in which Russell had started the year as the team’s title favourite.
Sunday’s race was, by several accounts, a fittingly dramatic way to settle it. Reports described a hotly contested, crash-hit grand prix with two safety cars and a red-flag stoppage, in which Antonelli drove with what Malay Mail’s AFP report called “a blend of audacity and professionalism that belied his age”. He started fourth, finished third, and never looked in danger of dropping out of the points he needed.
Reaction from inside the sport was generous, including from a driver with a direct interest in the record books. McLaren’s Lando Norris, last year’s world champion, said Antonelli had made winning the title look easy and deserved far more credit for what he called an “insane job” this season. Norris pointed out that Antonelli had beaten a team-mate with four or five more years in the sport, and had won more races in a single season than any other Italian driver.
For Mercedes, the title also sets up a second prize within days. The team leads the constructors’ standings with 630 points to Ferrari’s 504, and could clinch that championship in Brazil next weekend. Antonelli’s own title, by contrast, is already decided: his lead is now unassailable, at 119 points according to BusinessWorld’s report of the Mexico result, with only four rounds remaining.
What happens next is therefore about legacy rather than suspense. One possibility is that Antonelli, freed from championship pressure, adds further wins in the remaining races and helps Mercedes seal the constructors’ title in Brazil. Another is that the team uses the last rounds to manage risk and prepare for next season, in which Antonelli will go in as defending champion at 21. Either way, the record he has set — youngest champion, first Italian champion in 73 years, title winner in only his second season — will stand as the defining fact of the 2026 season.
For Formula One, the result also changes the shape of the sport’s next era. A champion who was 11 when he joined a development programme, 18 on debut and 20 on the title podium gives Mercedes a long-term figurehead, gives Italy a first champion since the 1950s, and gives the remaining races a new storyline: not who will win the drivers’ title, but how far a record-breaking young champion can extend his lead before the season ends.
More in News
NewsMore than 100 police injured as Germany's Gen Z protests turn violent in Frankfurt, with shops looted and 54 detained
NewsErdogan says South Korea could partner on Turkey's Sinop nuclear plant ahead of first Seoul visit since 2018
News