Kimi Antonelli won the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas on 25 October, taking his ninth victory of the season from pole position ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. The Mercedes driver leads his teammate George Russell by 123 points, with five races and 125 points still available, and he can clinch the world championship at the Mexico City Grand Prix, which runs from 30 October to 1 November. At 20, he would become the youngest champion in the sport’s history. The question is whether the championship is already effectively over.
The case that it is over starts with the points and the way Antonelli won. According to the Associated Press, he leads Russell by 123 points and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton by 124. Any finish ahead of both of them in Mexico City would win him the title, a Russell win with Antonelli in ninth would also do it, as would a Hamilton win with Antonelli in tenth, and if neither Russell nor Hamilton wins he clinches regardless of where he finishes. In Austin he took pole with what Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff called “a miracle lap,” then led the 56-lap race to win in 1:35:16.650, 13.078 seconds clear of Leclerc and 17.485 seconds clear of Verstappen. He credited “perfect execution” on a one-stop strategy, while Russell could finish only eighth after a five-second penalty for banging wheels with Oscar Piastri. A title would also make Antonelli the first Italian champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953.
The case that it is not yet over rests on the conditions attached to those scenarios and on his rivals. Formula 1’s own report says Antonelli did not clinch in Austin and was only “within touching distance” of a maiden title, so any result outside the combinations the AP lists, such as a Russell or Hamilton victory with Antonelli finishing lower than ninth or tenth, would keep the championship alive. Verstappen, a four-time champion, had won the two races before Austin and has now finished on the podium at six consecutive events, while Leclerc took his second straight second place and Hamilton finished fourth. Russell, asked about his penalty, said, “I was on the inside, he was overtaking on the outside. That’s his risk.” Wolff’s own verdict after the race was “Another small step,” and Antonelli said only that “it was a result we needed.”
What happens in Mexico matters for more than one trophy. A clinch at the next race would leave four rounds with nothing left to settle in the drivers’ standings, and would hand Mercedes a title for a driver who is 20 years old. The incident between Russell and Piastri, and Verstappen’s comment that his start was “consistently (bad),” show that the rivalries behind Antonelli are far from settled, and a win for either rival in Mexico would pull the decision into the final stretch. For a sport that has not had an Italian champion since 1953, the weekend carries unusual weight.
Antonelli holds a 123-point lead and a short list of ways to take the title in Mexico. A major swing in results is now the only thing that can stop him.
