As the sun began to rise on the Circuit of the Americas a week ago on Sunday morning, a lone sportswriter was taking a lonely stroll through the pit lane ahead of the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
During that ride, before the steep climb into Turn 1, the LED screen above the track lit up with a message.
“Kimi Antonelli, 2026 FIA Formula 1 World Champion.”
It’s nothing new for video board operators to prepare for any eventuality, and this writer remembers arriving at the track the day before the 2024 Miami Grand Prix with a similar message congratulating Logan Sargeant on his first F1 Grand Prix win. Those working with video boards, no matter how remote, must be prepared for any eventuality:
Antonelli did indeed win the US Grand Prix the week before, but it wasn’t enough to secure his first title. The video operators in Austin should never have covered this message.
To borrow a word from F1 commentator Alex Jacques, while it may not have been true at the time, his drive in Mexico City has made it true now.
And those video board operators can now send that message: Kimi Antonelli, 2026 Formula 1 World Champion.
Antonelli arrived in Mexico for the Mexican Grand Prix on the back of the title and although the young Mercedes phenom missed Thursday’s media day due to a viral illness, he did enough to start Saturday’s race in P4, with Charles Leclerc in P3 and second-starting Mercedes team-mate George Russell.
Antonelli was cautious at the start, eyeing Turn 1, but moved into P4 behind Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in front of him. As his Ferrari teammates came together and Leclerc moved into the lead, the drama unfolded ahead as Verstappen slipped to second as Hamilton took third.
While Leclerc and Russell were penalized for incidents on the first lap, Antonelli continued to score laps from P4. Antonelli inherited the lead on lap 28 when some early pit stops were completed by the top three drivers.
He played lap after lap on these soft tires, playing the waiting game in hopes of a safety car to make a free pit stop. But Antonelli didn’t need a win to win the title, he just managed to finish in the points to eliminate the rest of his rivals in the standings.
However, he went round after round, showing off his prowess on the brink of becoming the sport’s youngest champion.
Race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington gave him some great words of encouragement on lap 42 and said he was doing a great job and kept it up. He finally got out on lap 43 and was 12 seconds behind Hamilton in P3 in P4 – on the slower side – as his team put in a 4.3 second pit stop.
But if the fourth race had ended then it would have been good enough for the title.
A bad break came for Antonelli as Valtteri Bottas left the racing line and into the barrier to bring out the Safety Car. Some of the race leaders immediately went into the pit lane, including Hamilton. But a slow Ferrari stop saw Hamilton rejoin the race behind Antonelli, who had slipped to P3.
Then the red flag came out, neutralizing the race as the stewards attended Bottas inside the MAC-26 at Turn 1.
Race control revised the starting order during the red flag period to put Hamilton in P3 and Antonelli in P4.
Finally, the restart has arrived. Verstappen maintained the lead, with Hamilton moving up to P2 behind him. As for Antonelli, he slipped into third place and overtook Leclerc in a big way, putting him in position to not only celebrate the title in Mexico City, but also on the podium.
But the drama was not over yet. An incident between Arvid Lindblad and Oscar Piastri for seventh on lap 59 ended with the VCARB driver in the barrier and the Safety Car on the track. The field piled back up behind the Safety Car and another restart took place.
The safety car ended on lap 62, setting the stage for a nine-lap sprint to the checkered flag. Verstappen dropped the hammer to restart the Mexico Grand Prix, but Hamilton was on the backstretch at the end of the straight to stay within striking distance of the leader.
And behind them, Antonelli was closing in on his title.
As the laps ticked down, Verstappen maintained his lead over Hamilton, with Antonelli third. The biggest battle on the track was behind Antonelli as Leclerc tried to catch Lando Norris on the rear wing of Leclerc’s SF-26.
The battles between Leclerc and Norris, Verstappen and Hamilton caught the attention of the cameras. But between these fights, it was Antonelli who came around the corner to this title. In the end, Verstappen took the win ahead of Hamilton and Antonelli and the checkered flag flew.
List of F1 Drivers’ Champions with Antonelli joining a club with two drivers ahead of him.
After 73 years, an Italian has once again risen to the top of the Formula 1 world. Antonelli joins Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina and Alberto Ascari as three drivers to achieve individual F1 glory, with Farina winning in 1950 and Ascari in 1953.
Now Antonelli joins them.
“Thank you so much. We made it. We made it. Thank you so much,” Antonelli said, fighting back tears.
First hug? It was from none other than Hamilton, Antonelli, the driver who replaced him at Mercedes when Hamilton left for Ferrari.
Antonelli, who met with media representatives in Austin last week, described the idea of winning the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship as a dream. “I mean, it would be a dream. You know, it’s something I’ve been dreaming about since I was little,” Antonelli said ahead of Thursday’s United States Grand Prix.
Now that dream has become a reality.