Five key moments that defined Kimi Antonelli’s F1 season

It is only fitting that Kimi Antonelli chose the ‘Day of the Dead’ to leave his closest challengers dead and buried as he became the youngest-ever F1 world champion in Mexico City on Sunday.

Here are the key moments that defined Antonelli’s title-charge…

The 20-year-old Mercedes driver had admitted doubting himself in an inconsistent rookie season in 2025 as he scored less than half the points total of teammate George Russell. The first race of 2026 made it seem this would be another year of the Italian being Mercedes' No 2 driver. He crashed in practice in Australia and finished second behind Russell in the race.

Then came the breakthrough.

Antonelli battled past Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton at the start of the Chinese Grand Prix and then pulled away, leaving the seven-time world champion, Russell and Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc to fight it out for second. Holding back tears, Antonelli was almost speechless as he became the second-youngest race winner in F1 history.

Antonelli then turned his China victory into a five-race winning streak to surge into the standings lead, while Russell hit trouble.

The highlight came in Canada, when the title-chasing Mercedes duo put on a show in a thrilling fight through 30 laps, swapping the lead several times and coming dangerously close to making contact. Then it all went wrong for Russell. An engine failure brought him to a sudden stop, signaling the start of his troubles that made him drift farther away from his rampaging teammate.

Even worse was to come for Russell at the next race in Monaco, when Antonelli won and the British driver was hit hard by a timing system fault which wrongly handed out penalties for pit lane speeding.

Antonelli showed grit and maturity when he had his own troubled run in the middle of the season, refusing to give up on fighting even for a potential single point at the British Grand Prix.

He arrived at Silverstone with his lead cut after car problems in Barcelona as Hamilton won, along with a win for Russell in Austria.

The Italian youngster was chasing down Leclerc for the lead in Britain when his car suffered damage to the bodywork around the left front wheel, leaving him barely able to turn into corners.

Despite pleas over the radio from Mercedes to pit and retire the car, Antonelli kept going as he tried to cling on to 10th.

In the end, Antonelli didn't score points because of a penalty for going off-track in his near-undriveable car, but it was a signal of his willingness to fight till the end.

And then it all began to come together again.

Two years on from crashing at Monza on his F1 race weekend debut, Antonelli was unbeatable at home. Charging through the field from 19th on the grid, Antonelli took the lead by lap 17 and the win was never in doubt after that.

No Italian had won at home in 60 years, and no driver had won from that far back on the grid since 1983. In a season where Antonelli often seemed to be accumulating points with minimum fuss, here was a victory which showed he could elbow his way past the best in the business with his commanding presence on track.

Could Antonelli do even better than he had done in Italy? Mercedes boss Toto Wolff thought so, hailing his win at the Circuit of the Americas last week as "probably the best race I've seen" from Antonelli.

It was a masterclass in control as Antonelli took pole position, held the lead ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Leclerc at the start and managed the race to perfection to ensure neither could challenge him after that in Texas.

Coming to Mexico, Antonelli had all but sealed the title and in a season that saw the baby-faced driver overcome starting problems, there was none who could stop him from clinching the coveted title at the Mexican GP in the end.