Kimi Antonelli needs just two points to seal his maiden F1 title, but this scenario has put the FIA in a tight spot when making the final call on races in the Middle East.

Antonelli needs just two points from the remaining races to clinch the F1 title, or does he?

Amazing Antonelli

Before we get into anything less positive, there is only one place to start from the weekend, and that is Antonelli.

With all the pressure of a potential championship-deciding weekend, the Italian steadily grew into the event before making his first real mark with a stunning effort at the start of Q3 on Saturday.

Before then, Ferrari had been the team to beat, with Max Verstappen predictably in the mix as well.

But when it came to Sunday, there was only ever going to be one winner. Pulling a lead of over two seconds on the opening lap, Antonelli never looked under pressure, with Mercedes running its own one-stop race despite the attempts of others to force it into a two-stop plan.

It is all too easy to forget amid his dominance of the season that Antonelli is only in his second F1 season. Making his achievements all the more outstanding, he would still become the youngest F1 champion if he somehow let the current campaign slip, but won in any of the next three years.

The way the 20-year-old has made the team his own, and has overcome George Russell, who, despite being way off the pace at times, including the entirety of the COTA weekend, entered this year as the championship favourite, can only be applauded.

A generational talent? Some have already made this leap and have drawn comparisons to Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, and Ayrton Senna.

It’s too early to make that move. Does Antonelli have the potential to be considered among those greats? Certainly, but you reach that company over a period of time, not through a single strong season.

Winning once is tough, but there’s a reason why the follow-up is often referred to as the difficult second album.

As Antonelli cruised to victory, there was plenty of action unfolding in the midfield as strategies diverged and converged, but at the end of it all, the Mercedes driver now sits just two points away from securing his place in the F1 history books.

Speaking of which…

F1 title fight goes to Mexico…or will it?

FOM and the FIA have consistently maintained that F1 will race in Qatar and Abu Dhabi to round out the season. This is despite tensions increasing once again, and the unknown of what, if any, escalation could occur following the US mid-term elections in November.

It is completely understandable, given the lucrative nature of rounds in the Middle East, why there would be a desire to keep the rounds in place, but the fact that Antonelli was unable to wrap up the title on Sunday now complicates things.

On Sunday, it was announced that the Dakar Rally will not take place in Saudi Arabia next year, having been scheduled to take place at the start of January. This comes after the World Endurance Championship and various other competitions, both national and international, have decided that the time is not right to race in the region.

For national championships in particular, this decision has been taken due to the increase in freight costs, with some sources indicating that these have rised ten-fold.

MotoGP is currently set to race in Qatar in the first week of November, but riders recently held a (not-so) secret meeting in Philip Island over the weekend, with reports suggesting that two-thirds of those in attendance voted against competing in the country.

Should F1 follow WEC and the Dakar Rally in the coming days by removing rounds in the Middle East, even if Imola replaces one event, Antonelli would be robbed of his crowning moment on the track given his points advantage.

From a PR point of view, this would be an utter disaster.

In whatever sport in which you compete, you want to win a title in your arena, not through a change in circumstances.

Put it this way, leaving COTA, everyone in Antonelli’s camp is beaming, knowing full well that there is a significant chance that he will win the title next time out. The anticipation of that moment, knowing that he simply needs to stroke his Mercedes around to ninth place, that there is no pressure to go and rag his car to the fullest, will keep the adrenaline flowing all week.

But should he receive a message midweek saying something along the lines of, ‘Qatar and Abu Dhabi are cancelled, Imola is in. You’re the champion’, there would undoubtedly be a celebration, but would this hit the same way as winning on the track? Absolutely not.

Just think back to the COVID year where there were no fans. Victories just seemed different.

Sport is nothing without the fans, and Antonelli will have dreamed of sharing his success with his.

Please F1, don’t rob us of this potentially iconic moment.

Having said all of this, it seems obvious to say that safety absolutely must be the priority. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem said recently that safety would not be compromised, and you have to take this at face value.

The phrase ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’ is most appropriate here.

Track limits and bumps

The Circuit of the Americas is comfortably one of the top tracks on the F1 calendar, and almost always delivers an enthralling race.

However, it is not without its flaws – if you listen to the drivers, that is.

F1 cars are designed to work at their best on billiard-smooth surfaces, with no lumps or bumps. Essentially, the opposite of COTA.

The United States Grand Prix venue was built on swamp land, with around three metres of clay being dug out around the entire layout before concrete foundations and the track surface could be laid.

Due to this, the track has subsided in certain areas, with movements in the ground creating ripples in the surface. This has become a characterising feature of the track, much to the ire of some drivers.

Max Verstappen made his thoughts known, while Lando Norris went as far as to reveal that he was taking headache tablets before each session to counter the effect.

Circuit chairman Bobby Epstein defended the track, but conceded: “We don’t feel good that there’s a bump at the bottom of Turn 1. We didn’t know about it until this week. We would have fixed it.”

He went on to add that when WEC visited, there were no such complaints. This could simply have been through drivers working around the issue, or the cars were more compliant across the bumps.

But the larger problem this weekend was track limits, with drivers taking liberties with the swathes of asphalt run-off areas. On Friday, over 200 lap times were deleted, leading to the white lines in various corners being widened overnight.

Saturday, however, saw a repeat, with 42 times deleted in FP3, and more in qualifying.

Enter the racing drivers’ book of excuses.

Drivers will state correctly that it’s difficult to see the lines from the cockpit. If you’ve ever sat in a single-seater, you will know that you can see nothing of your front wheels.

Why then is it the case that drivers appear to be able to stick within track limits when there is grass or gravel as a deterrent?

It’s only ever a problem when there is an asphalt escape.

Is gravel or grass notably higher than asphalt? Not particularly. But if there is time to be gained, drivers will always push the limits. Add some grass or gravel and the problem will disappear in a heartbeat. Let’s be done with these frankly absurd excuses.

Special liveries can get in the bin

There was a time, not very long ago, when an F1 team running a special livery was genuinely special.

In the 1990s, there are few examples to speak of, while in the 2000s, it was only really Jaguar and Red Bull that ran majorly altered designs at all – these usually through movie tie-ins at the Monaco Grand Prix.

For the most part, this was due to FIA regulations that forced teams to run largely identical cars all season.

While this may be the draconian approach, there needs to be something done to stop teams from revealing a special livery for almost every single round. If you think there were too many this weekend in Austin, just wait until Las Vegas!

At this point, some teams may as well just label their original launch livery as the ‘testing livery’, because you won’t see it much more than that.

Yes, there are often plus points to the ‘special’ looks, but we’ve gone so far beyond the line now that there feels nothing special about these any more.

Ferrari, Cadillac, Haas, and Mercedes all ran revised liveries this weekend, but will many people remember them after a good night’s sleep? Probably not.

I have long been an advocate of introducing a ‘retro round’. Likely Monaco, teams could run a livery from their back catalogue, or one from a lineage of their entry – Red Bull adapting a Stewart Ford livery, for example, for that one event.

Make a big thing of it, and this could become something to really look forward to. You know, it might even feel special!

The same goes for drivers’ helmets. Traditionally, the calling card of a driver. Name any driver from the 80s or 90s, and you could likely sketch a fairly close likeness of their helmet.

But could you do that for many drivers beyond 2010? Hamilton and Piastri this weekend were unrecognisable, and there were plenty of other changes. Does anyone really know what Bottas wears anymore?

In a sport where branding is everything, it’s easy to argue that only Norris and Verstappen have iconic helmets in the modern day, and even these aren’t afraid to switch things up.

On both counts, marketing opportunities are likely a major factor in constant changes. After all, the more you change things, the more merchandise you can sell.

But the past weekend really felt like things had gone a step too far.

It may seem like a thought from a bygone era, but can’t we make a decision and just stick with it?

F1 regulations work?

The current era of F1 regulations has received much criticism, with battles decided by who has the most energy deployment remaining for the most part.

But there was no talk of this across the weekend – even from the teams and the drivers. What a refreshing change!

Instead, we just had what felt like an old-fashioned race where there was plenty of action throughout the field, and battles decided by either skill or strategy, with the tyre offset powerful.

Strategy was key to the race, and drivers seemed to be able to push where needed on tyres that degraded far less than had been feared during the early stages of the weekend.

Even with the long straight, there was no mention of superclipping – bliss.

Yes, there is a lot wrong with these regulations, and they don’t work everywhere – find us a ruleset that ever has! – but the weekend certainly leaves the impression that maybe it’s not the rules that are the problem; it’s the track selection.

Silverstone, Monza, COTA – three proper tracks, and three venues where these rules have 100% worked.

Suzuka is too narrow for modern F1 and Spa has a patchy history of producing great races – even if it remains an iconic track – but on wide tracks with some heavy braking zones and at least one long straight, the regulations absolutely work.

That said, hurry up and get the V8 screamers back, please!

More from the United States Grand Prix

Conclusions recap: How the F1 2026 season has unfolded

The Circuit of the Americas delivered as it always does.

The racing was solid, and there was action throughout, with intrigue surrounding the podium positions right up to the closing moments.

Yes, FOM and the FIA now find themselves in somewhat of a tricky position, but that was always going to be the case leaving Austin. It’s just the nature of how fine those margins are that magnifies the problem. Although it would be a PR disaster to have Antonelli crowned champion off the track, safety is paramount, and there can be few arguments over that.

Ferrari again saw its pace disappear in qualifying, and although Charles Leclerc was able to recover a second-place finish with Hamilton narrowly missing out on joining him on the podium, there are yet more questions to answer for the Scuderia.

Despite finishing third, Max Verstappen is now mathematically out of the championship hunt for the first time since the start of the 2021 season, a streak that is frankly incredible.

F1 continues its latest triple-header next weekend in Mexico, where – barring any sudden announcements or drama – we will see the youngest champion in F1 history crowned.