Kimi Antonelli won the United States Grand Prix impressively, and the win put the Formula 1 World Championship easily within his grasp.
Sunday, the 20-year-old Italian Mercedes driver crossed the finish line 13.078 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, securing the maximum 25 points and stretching his lead in the Drivers’ Championship to 123 points. With just five more races remaining this season, that leaves just 125 points available for Antonelli’s rivals to win.
The result means that Antonelli could put the championship battle to bed as early as this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix.
How Antonelli Secures the Title in Mexico
The Mercedes driver’s strong drive Sunday, which started by securing pole position on Saturday before taking a commanding lead in the race, has placed him in a perfect position to secure the title without needing to do too much this weekend. In Austin, Antonelli nearly became World Champion but only under very specific conditions, which came close to happening.
With Antonelli winning the race, had Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton finished P5, and his Mercedes teammate George Russell finished P9, the points gap would be too large to make up with so few races left. However, both drivers managed to keep Antonelli waiting another week by finishing one position higher than the clinching scenarios, as Hamilton crossed the line in P4 and Russell in P8.
Russell remains Antonelli’s closest challenger. However, as Hamilton is currently one point behind him in the standings, 124 behind Antonelli, he is not yet mathematically eliminated from contention either. But neither driver is realistically expected to have a genuine chance of extending their challenge, with just two points needed for the championship leader to wrap things up. That means that Antonelli only needs to be P9 when he sees the checkered flag at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
Other than when he retired on Lap 61 of the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, the young Italian has finished lower than P9 just once all season, which came at the British Grand Prix, 10 races ago. Antonelli finished P15 at Silverstone after suffering damage late in the race. Since then, he has not finished below P5. Again, even that only happened once, in Azerbaijan, and he has finished on the podium in eight of the last nine races with four wins. With such a low-scoring result needed to be crowned champion, this weekend’s race feels like a formality and a coronation for the boy from Bologna.
Antonelli’s Record-Breaking Year
It has been a record-breaking year for Antonelli, who has achieved some impressive feats at such a young age. At the Chinese Grand Prix, Antonelli became Formula 1’s youngest-ever pole sitter, the youngest driver to win from pole, and by also claiming the fastest lap, he became the youngest driver to record a hat trick. Just one race later, at the Japanese Grand Prix, he became the youngest driver to win consecutive races and, by doing so, became the youngest driver to lead the championship.
From the Chinese Grand Prix, Antonelli had five consecutive Grand Prix victories, up to the Monaco Grand Prix. This broke the record for most consecutive wins from a driver’s maiden win. While considered less important in the grand scheme of Formula 1, Antonelli also became the youngest driver to set a fastest lap in a sprint race at the Canadian Grand Prix, and his win at the British Sprint also saw him break the record for the youngest sprint race winner.
But one record still awaits him, and it is one that may never be broken. The current record for the youngest Formula 1 World Champion is held by former Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel, who won the 2010 title aged 23 years and 133 days. On Sunday, Antonelli will be just 20 years and 68 days old, which means that when he clinches the title, he will claim the record by more than three years and 65 days. This is an enormous achievement, and considering how long Vettel’s record has stood, there is every reason to suspect this will be one that stands for a long, long time.
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