Kimi Antonelli’s road to F1 immortality: Five moments that defined his historic title-winning season | Hindustan Times

Kimi Antonelli has become Formula 1's youngest-ever champion. Securing the title on Sunday at the Mexico City Grand Prix confirms the rapid rise of a 20-year-old driver who hadn't won a race when 2026 began.Here's the story of Antonelli's historic title-winning season in five key moments:The breakthrough winAntonelli admitted doubting himself in an inconsistent rookie season as he scored less than half the points total of teammate George Russell. The first race of 2026 made it seem this would be another year of Antonelli as Mercedes' No. 2 driver. He crashed heavily in practice in Australia and was second behind Russell in the race.Then came the breakthrough.Antonelli battled past seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton at the start of the Chinese Grand Prix and then pulled away, leaving Hamilton, Russell and Charles Leclerc to fight it out for second. Holding back tears, Antonelli was almost speechless as he became the second-youngest race winner in F1 history.Wheel-to-wheel battle with Russell ends suddenlyAntonelli turned his China victory into a five-race winning streak to surge into the standings lead, while Russell hit trouble.The highlight came in Canada, when the title-chasing Mercedes duo put on a show in a thrilling fight through 30 laps, trading the lead several times and coming dangerously close to making contact. Then it all went wrong for Russell. An engine failure brought him to a sudden stop and he slammed his fists against the car in frustration.Worse was to come for Russell at the next race in Monaco, when Antonelli won and Russell was hit hard by a timing system fault which wrongly handed out penalties for pit lane speeding.Determination in adversityAntonelli showed his grit when he hit his own troubled run in the middle of the season, refusing to give up on fighting even for a potential single point at the British Grand Prix.Antonelli arrived at Silverstone with his lead cut after car problems in Barcelona as Hamilton won, and a win for Russell in Austria.Antonelli was chasing down Leclerc for the lead in Britain when his car suffered damage to the bodywork around the left front wheel, leaving Antonelli barely able to turn into corners. Despite pleas over the radio from Mercedes to pit and retire the car, Antonelli kept going as he tried to cling on to 10th.In the end, Antonelli didn't score points because of a penalty for going off-track in his near-undriveable car, but it was a signal of his willingness to fight for even a small advantage.A win like no other at homeEating spaghetti from the Italian Grand Prix trophy was the exclamation point on a remarkable win for Antonelli in front of his home crowd.Two years on from crashing at Monza on his F1 race weekend debut, Antonelli was unbeatable at home. Charging through the field from 19th on the grid, Antonelli took the lead by lap 17 and the win was never in doubt after that.No Italian had won at home in 60 years, and no driver had won from that far back on the grid since 1983. In a season where Antonelli often seemed to be accumulating points with minimum fuss, here was a victory which showed he could elbow his way past the best in the business."For me personally, I'm not even thinking about a fight or a comeback or anything," Russell said after the race.Antonelli's best race' sets up title clincherCould Antonelli do even better than he had done in Italy? Mercedes boss Toto Wolff thought so, hailing his win at the Circuit of the Americas last week as "probably the best race I've seen" from Antonelli.This was a masterpiece in control as Antonelli took pole position, held the lead ahead of Max Verstappen and Leclerc at the start and managed the race to perfection to ensure neither could challenge him after that in Texas.Unlike earlier in the season, Antonelli did it without having the unquestioned best car in the field, too. By this stage, Red Bull and Ferrari had largely caught up with Mercedes on pace and Antonelli's car was increasingly skittish after recent upgrades. Russell couldn't make it work at all and was eighth. That left Antonelli needing just two more points to secure his championship in Mexico.