After driving from 19th on the grid to win his home Grand Prix at Monza, Italian Kimi Antonelli won in a far more conventional fashion on Sunday in Formula 1's first ever race at the Madring, the new host of the official Spanish Grand Prix.
The win was his F1-leading eighth of the season, seventh from the front row, and allowed him to extend his lead in the world championship standings to 81 points, more than three full Grand Prix victories, over teammate George Russell with nine races remaining on the 23-race 2026 calendar.
Russell entered the 2026 season as the clear favorite to win the world championship, with Mercedes expected to dominate from the get-go to begin Formula 1's new era of regulations.
That is indeed how things looked early on, with Russell leading a 1-2 Mercedes finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on a weekend that saw Antonelli crash in practice.
Kimi Antonelli sent a message F1 fans can't ignore
But in the 13 races that have been contested since, Russell has been victorious only once, while Antonelli appears to be on his way to becoming the first driver to win the Formula 1 world championship after entering the season with zero career wins since Keke Rosberg in 1982.
And with his eighth win, Antonelli has already passed Russell on the all-time wins list.
It's a development that not many would have seen coming, after Antonelli struggled mightily in his rookie season as many fans and critics questioned whether or not it was the right move to bring an 18-year-old straight into Formula 1 with a top team such as Mercedes. There was even speculation that he would be replaced by Max Verstappen after just one year.
Even in the days leading up to the 2026 season, for as obvious as Mercedes' advantage was, Antonelli wasn't even listed as one of the top four favorites.
Instead, he has proven his doubters wrong and then some. Russell is in his fifth season at Mercedes and has seven wins, while Antonelli has twice as many wins as his teammate since becoming his teammate only a year and a half ago, even after an extremely rough 2025 campaign. Of Mercedes' nine most recent wins, eight belong to Antonelli.
While the speculation of Verstappen replacing Russell in 2027 was recently shut down by his Red Bull contract extension, don't be surprised if the 28-year-old Briton's future is called into question once again next year if Antonelli's dominance continues.
But for now, Russell simply needs to worry about holding onto second in the standings. He's currently 20 points ahead of Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, whom Antonelli replaced, but he had been behind Hamilton until recently.
Formula 1 has off this coming weekend, but the following weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix is set to kick off the first of three straight tripleheaders. That race is a Saturday race, not a Sunday race, and is set to be shown live on Apple TV beginning at 6:55 a.m. ET on Saturday, September 26.
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