Kimi Antonelli, 20, Becomes Formula 1's Youngest World Champion in Mexico City
Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli finished third at the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday to clinch his first Formula 1 world championship at 20 years and 68 days — more than three years younger than Sebastian Vettel was when he set the previous record in 2010.
Kimi Antonelli became the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history on Sunday, 1 November 2026, sealing the 2026 drivers' title with a third-place finish at the Mexico City Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver is 20 years and 68 days old. Red Bull's Max Verstappen won the race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton second.
Antonelli did not need the podium to take the championship — a finish of ninth or better would have been enough regardless of what his rivals did — but he drove to third anyway, and reached 380 championship points with four races still remaining. His lead, reported at 119 points, is now mathematically out of reach.
A disrupted race, a settled title
The grand prix itself was anything but straightforward. The race was red-flagged and restarted after multiple crashes, with a halt of about 33 minutes while 25 of the 71 laps remained. Antonelli, who had started fourth and went into the weekend unwell, kept his car in podium position through the interruptions and took the flag third, behind Verstappen and Hamilton, to close the championship with a round to spare several times over.
The record he took, and how he got here
The previous youngest champion was Sebastian Vettel, who won the first of his four titles with Red Bull in 2010 at 23 years and 134 days. Antonelli has beaten that mark by more than three years — and he has done it in only his second season in Formula 1, having stepped into the Mercedes seat vacated by Hamilton. Reports of his season describe five consecutive wins from China to Monaco in the spring as the stretch that broke the field, and season totals of nine wins and 16 podium finishes.
Only three other drivers — Hamilton, Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Manuel Fangio — have won the championship in their second season. None did it at 20.
A 73-year wait for Italy ends
Antonelli, who is from Bologna and was signed by Mercedes as an 11-year-old karter, is the first Italian world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953, and only the third Italian champion since the championship began in 1950, after Giuseppe Farina and Ascari. In Italy, the result was treated as a national occasion: several hundred fans watched a screening of the race late on Sunday at the museum at the Imola circuit, and set aside club loyalties to cheer a Mercedes driver home.
What is left to decide
The drivers' title is settled, but the season is not over. Four races remain, running through Brazil and Las Vegas to the finale in Abu Dhabi in December, and the fight behind Antonelli is live: Verstappen's Mexico win moved him into second place in the standings on 261 points, two ahead of Hamilton. Antonelli has said he intends to keep his number 12 rather than switch to the champion's number 1 — a small detail that fits the tone of his season: the record books have changed, and he seems in no hurry to act like it.