Antonelli on brink of maiden title as Russell battles Mercedes upgrade woes

Antonelli one step from title after Austin masterclass

Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli is one step closer to becoming the new Formula 1 world champion after winning the United States Grand Prix from pole position. The 20-year-old Italian, who leads team-mate George Russell by 123 points in the standings, will secure the title in Mexico City on Sunday by finishing ninth or higher.

The dominant theme of the 2026 season has been the degree to which Antonelli has stepped up his game after a mixed rookie season that contained some definite highs but also quite a few difficulties. In doing so, he has overwhelmed Russell, who has accepted and is more than willing to say that Antonelli has simply done a better job than him this season.

Antonelli's performances have lived up to the billing with which he came to F1 — that he could be the sport's next generational talent. He has had some luck, and some of his wins have turned on fortune — safety cars in Japan and Madrid, for example. But he has also performed at a level of consistent excellence, producing standout performances most obviously at Monaco, Monza and Austin. The Mercedes has on average been the best car, but Antonelli is the only one of the team's two drivers who has always been a factor.

Russell, by contrast, has won only three races compared with Antonelli's nine. He has fundamentally used driving style as an explanation for his relative struggles, saying the previous cars suited his and the new ones Antonelli's. On Sunday, team principal Toto Wolff said Russell had struggled in Austin to get the right set-up on the Mercedes with the new upgrade package, which has been problematic since it was introduced in Malaysia.

"George, for all of us in the team, is a champion and has won in every category and merits to be put in the group of the very best ones," Wolff said. "And we've seen that last year. This year, we see this variability in results. When we land the car in the way that suits him, he's absolutely fine. But when it drops out of that operational window, he struggles and he struggles more than maybe Kimi. And that is on us.

"We just have to work it out with him how there can be such a difference in driving, in performance, because George is not half a second slower, three tenths slower than Kimi. That's just absolutely not the case. So what is it that he doesn't like? What is it that we need to do in terms of modifying the car, setting it up in a different way for him to go fast? Because it's all about the intelligence, the ability, the determination."

BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson noted that the absolute elite — drivers such as Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso — tend to find a way to be at the top of their game regardless of the car's behaviour. The worry for Russell is that if Antonelli is at that level — and it looks as though he has the potential to be, given his performances in only his second season — he will have his work cut out to beat him consistently in the future. Russell, Benson wrote, needs to regroup over the winter, come back next year and prove he can get back on to Antonelli's level.