Max Verstappen won the Mexico City Grand Prix, but the story of the afternoon at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was written by Kimi Antonelli. The Mercedes driver is the 2026 Formula 1 world champion, and at 20 years and 68 days he is the youngest in the history of the sport, more than three years younger than Sebastian Vettel was when he won his first title in 2010.

Verstappen’s victory was his third of the season, after wins that include Singapore, and it came from fifth on the grid, after a one-place grid penalty dropped him behind Antonelli. Lewis Hamilton had started from pole position, the first of his Ferrari career, with Antonelli fourth on the grid and Verstappen behind him. The race was interrupted on lap 45 by a red flag after Valtteri Bottas’s suspension failed and he crashed at Turn 1, reshaping the order after a round of stops under the safety car and the stoppage.

For Antonelli, the title is the culmination of a season in which he won nine of the first 18 races, led the standings with 365 points before Mexico and entered the weekend 123 clear of his teammate George Russell. Verstappen, Leclerc and Norris had already been eliminated from the fight mathematically, and Mexico left the only open question as how, and where, Antonelli would be crowned. He needed a finish in the top nine, or any result at all if neither Russell nor Hamilton won, and he got it.

The numbers tell the story of a driver who never let go once he took the lead. Antonelli won in China, Japan, Miami, Canada, Monaco and Belgium before taking the United States Grand Prix a week earlier, and in his last 11 races before Mexico he scored nine podiums. Along the way he became the youngest pole-sitter in Formula 1 history, the youngest leader of the world championship and the youngest winner in Monaco, and he is now the first Italian champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953, 73 years ago.

Born in Bologna on 25 August 2006, Andrea Kimi Antonelli is the son of former racing driver Marco Antonelli. He started karting at seven, joined the Mercedes Junior Programme in 2019, won the Italian and ADAC Formula 4 titles in 2022 and the Formula Regional European championship in 2023, then finished sixth in Formula 2 in 2024 with two wins. He made his Formula 1 debut in Australia in 2025, aged 18, finished fourth, and ended his rookie season seventh in the standings with 150 points. Mercedes has him under contract through 2027.

Lando Norris, who has carried the number 1 as reigning champion, had said he was more than happy to hand it over to Antonelli. Now the boy from Bologna, who arrived in Formula 1 to replace Hamilton at Mercedes, takes it for himself.