Miami–Mercedes Wonderkid kmy antonelli continued his march towards Formula 1 megastardom with his third consecutive victory at the Miami Grand Prix, extending his fairy tale championship lead.
The Italian teenage sensation, who only turned 19 last August, has taken control of the early stages of the championship race in only his second F1 season. To most observers, this was an unexpected situation – many fans and pundits thought the early season would be dominated by his more experienced Mercedes teammate, the preseason favourite. george russell.
Russell reinforced that feeling by winning the opening race of 2026, the Australian Grand Prix of Melbourne, but Antonelli has now taken three consecutive wins and left Miami with a 20-point lead over the Englishman.
It’s still early days in a championship that will last 22 races and end in early December, but Antonelli’s performance on Sunday in Miami was a powerful statement, putting the reigning world champion on hold. lando norris To claim victory. It wasn’t flawless – even by his own admission – and clearly he still has a lot of work to do when it comes to his debut, but Antonelli has been mistake-free when it matters and has shown the blazing speed that Mercedes predicted would eventually take his phenomenal karting and junior career into Formula 1.
It was a bizarre race, as it turned out – happening three hours ahead of schedule thanks to a storm that never came anyway. Whatever your views on F1’s much-hyped new cars and the new form of yo-yo racing it has created, Antonelli carried out his battle for position impeccably – especially after appearing to wobble off the line as he has in every start so far this year.
Antonelli said, “The start was still not good, plus I made a mistake, then I was lucky how things went despite the mistake.” “And then, yes, then obviously we were in the battle, me, Charles and Lando, and then I passed Lando, made a little mistake on the energy, and then I was chasing. And then luckily the undercut worked very well, and then we found ourselves in the chase. But it wasn’t easy because Lando was fast and he was pressing a lot. And I knew I couldn’t make any mistakes. [after that]”
Asked if he expected to be in such a situation so early in his career, Antonelli said: “No, I didn’t expect it. And yes, I mean, obviously we’re having such a good moment. It’s still a very long season and there are a lot of things that can change. George is definitely going to be super strong in Canada; he’s always been very strong there, so he’ll definitely come back on top.”
On the other side of the Mercedes garage, the pressure is increasing on Russell. He has finished fourth in his last three races – the Japanese Grand Prix, the Miami Sprint and the Miami Grand Prix – and the Canadian Grand Prix at the end of the month is already looking like a key moment in his season. Although he may have had reason to be nervous, his face looked courageous after Sunday’s race.
When Russell was asked if he underestimated Antonelli in any way, he said, “No, not at all.” “He’s a fantastic driver. He’s been exceptionally fast since day one. You can’t win all the championships as a young player if you don’t have the pace. But I still believe in myself, and even though I’ve been there, I haven’t forgotten how to drive. It’s a bit of a tough race, but we’re four races down, there’s a long way to go and we’ll assess things over the next few weeks.”
Three in a row: Can Antonelli be stopped?
Antonelli’s current run is truly something special. The Italian kept himself in giant company over the two days of the weekend. On Saturday, he won pole, meaning the first three grand prix pole positions of his career have come in three consecutive races. The only other driver to do this is ayrton senna And Michael Schumacher. Then, on Sunday, he won, meaning his first three career wins have come in three consecutive races. The only other driver to achieve this is Damon Hill And Mika Hakkinen.
Of those four men, two claim to be the greatest drivers the sport has ever seen, while the other two were great world champions. Comparison with the past becomes more effective. Of the 23 drivers who have won three consecutive races, 20 have become world champions. Incredible stuff for a guy who wouldn’t be able to legally buy beer in the US to celebrate his most recent win.
When that fact was put to him, he responded as you might expect from a 19-year-old. “It’s a nice statement, but I don’t really want to think too much about it,” he said Sunday afternoon. “I’m just going to enjoy the moment, but at the same time I know that we have to get back to work quickly because obviously we have another break, let’s say, which is not ideal.
0:34
Norris: McLaren will have to be happy with performance in Miami
McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri speak after the Miami Grand Prix.
“But yes, I will try to prepare the best I can to bring Canada back even stronger. But yes, I think it’s good.”
Antonelli is the epitome of cool at the moment. He talks and runs with someone who is full of confidence. His recent performance is a far cry from rookie Antonelli, who struggled for large parts of 2025. The contrast in performance between the inconsistent Antonelli and Russell, who was one of the strongest drivers throughout the season, only reinforced the preseason narrative that the latter would comfortably pull away this year.
In fact, Antonelli’s up-and-down season was so worrying at points that it was not difficult to find people in the paddock who felt that Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had made a spectacular mistake by giving a teenage driver the car that was his. Lewis Hamilton When the sport’s most accomplished driver left for Ferrari. Wolff’s philosophy on the sometimes erratic Antonelli has always been the same, and he repeated it again in Miami.
Wolff said, “It seems like there’s always been too much speed; everything is destroying the fine details.” “It’s easier to slow someone down, calm down someone wild, because you can’t speed up a donkey, so for me that was his best race ever. It reminds me of his karting days or Formula 4, no mistakes today.”
Obviously, Antonelli is no asshole. Despite struggling as a rookie, his blazing pace was always there. Things appear to have come together this season – which often happens when a driver with significant talent is finally given a top-tier car. Reigning world champion Norris – who lost the battle for victory with the Mercedes driver on Sunday – pointed to Antonelli’s rookie year and praised the Italian’s start to the season.
“He’s doing a great job, hats off to him,” Norris said. “At that age, second year in Formula 1 – he’s doing an unbelievable job, it’s impressive. Performing under pressure, beating his mates who have been in it for quite a long time, he’s doing all the right things, so you can’t really fault him at any point. He got a lot of stuff going on last year, but he’s proving a lot of people wrong, so I’m very happy for him. He’s a very good guy… and that’s also frustrating, because I want to beat him but he’s doing a good job. Has been.”
Norris may be able to sympathize with the situation in which his old friend Russell now finds himself. There are notable similarities between the beginning of 2026 and the beginning of 2025. Like Russell this year, Norris entered last season with the favorite tag and, like Russell, won the Australian Grand Prix. Antonelli played the role at Mercedes last year oscar piastri At McLaren, Joe led in the races that followed and completely reshaped the narrative. Norris would eventually win over his partner (and max verstappen for good measure) in a tumultuous season, but his struggles in the early part of the year were a major talking point.
Similar attention will now be paid to Russell and how he reacts to Antonelli overturning his initial prediction so quickly.
Miami was especially important because Russell had no answer to Antonelli’s speed. Asked by ESPN if he was worried about the big margin even at the start of the season, Russell shrugged and shook his head. “Honestly, I’m not even considering it,” he said. “I just want to get back on the top step of the podium. In the first three races I had the performance to do that. This weekend I didn’t have the performance to do that at all. So I can stand here now with three different results from the last race, and then it’s just a one-time thing. But obviously things work differently in Japan and China, so yes, sometimes it happens like that.”
Anyone who has followed the 2025 season will know that it is too early to declare a driver champion in May – Piastri led Norris by 34 points in September and still did not win the title. It seems likely that the Mercedes car will also be strong enough to keep Antonelli and Russell to wins all season, so we have to assume Russell will find himself back in form at some point. While McLaren may finally become a factor, Norris’s performance at the weekend was certainly surprising, but welcome.
Even if all of this is true, Antonelli is the best player right now and Russell’s biggest task now is to step up his game to make it happen. Miami has always been one of Antonelli’s strongest venues – he claimed sprint pole there 12 months ago – but Canada is a Russell circuit where he has always performed exceptionally well, and it looks like it is a key venue for the Briton to pull Antonelli’s freight train onto its tracks.
“Obviously he’s in a very good place right now and the momentum is with him,” Russell said. “But I have enough experience winning championships to know how the pace changes in a championship [battle] Last year.”
