Kimi Antonelli becomes youngest ever F1 world champion at 20

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Antonelli has not just beaten teammate George Russell this season but wiped the floor with him this year (Getty) Getty

Marco Antonelli has been alongside his son throughout his championship-winning year (PA Wire) PA Wire

Antonelli was earmarked as a generational talent from an early age (Getty) Getty

Antonelli crashed in his first F1 practice session after just 10 minutes (Getty) Getty

Antonelli was the first Italian to win at Monza since 1966 (PA Wire) PA Wire

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Kimi Antonelli became Formula 1's youngest world champion on Sunday, at 20 years and 68 days, when third place in Mexico City settled the 2026 title. Max Verstappen won the race ahead of Lewis Hamilton; the podium was all Antonelli needed. It is Italy's first drivers' championship in 73 years, and the first ever taken by an Italian in a car that is not Italian.

Sebastian Vettel had held the age record since 2010, when he won his first title at 23 years and 134 days; Antonelli was born on the August day Vettel made his Formula 1 race-weekend debut in Turkey in 2006. Only Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 and Lewis Hamilton in 2008 had previously won the championship in a second season. Antonelli is also the first champion born this century, and the third Italian after Giuseppe Farina, the inaugural champion of 1950, and Alberto Ascari, whose back-to-back titles came for Ferrari in 1952 and 1953.

Ferrari, the team Ascari won for, declined to sign Antonelli as a junior because he was small. Mercedes put him in its young-driver programme at twelve, watched him skip Formula 3, and moved him into Lewis Hamilton's old seat after a sixth-place Formula 2 season — the same year his first Formula 1 practice ended with him off the road. The 2025 rookie campaign left him in tears at Spa-Francorchamps after a disastrous qualifying session; 2026 brought nine wins, a first victory at Shanghai in March that opened a run of five in a row, and a season-long beating of George Russell, the pre-season favourite in what was considered the quickest car on the grid. In Mexico City, Russell served a 10-second penalty for spinning Isack Hadjar while his teammate collected the title.

Behind the bet was a family that raced. Antonelli's parents had dreamed of a footballer; at three years old, Kimi held the wheel of his father's simulator while Marco — an amateur racer who ran a team in nearby San Marino — worked the pedals. "We did it," Antonelli said afterwards. "I wouldn't be here without Mercedes and without my family."

In Italy he now stands with the tennis player Jannik Sinner among the country's biggest sports stars, though the Viaplay commentator Atle Gulbrandsen supplied the local caveat: Antonelli is huge in Italy, but for Italians he drives for the wrong team, with Ferrari in mind.

His middle name was not chosen in tribute to Kimi Räikkönen. When he took that first victory in Shanghai, the announcer Bob Constanduros congratulated Räikkönen by mistake — and Ferrari's last champion remains the other Kimi, from 2007.