Source : @F1
AUSTIN — Kimi Antonelli arrives at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix with a 102-point lead in the Formula 1 drivers’ championship and a first, if slender, chance to be crowned world champion at the Circuit of The Americas in Texas.
Formula 1’s official X account marked the build-up on Tuesday (Oct 20) with a graphic headlined “Austin – Chasing the title”, showing the Mercedes driver’s “102 point lead” and the line “All to drive for”. The post was captioned: “Ascending towards greatness in Austin”, alongside the hashtags #F1 and #USGP.
The 20-year-old Italian leads the standings on 340 points after 17 rounds. His Mercedes team-mate George Russell is second on 238, with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton third on 229, 111 points behind. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is fourth on 221, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc fifth on 215 and McLaren’s Lando Norris sixth on 201, according to the official standings.
Antonelli stretched his advantage to a season-high margin at the Singapore Grand Prix on Oct 11, where he finished third behind race winner Verstappen and Leclerc. Russell, who started 19th after engine penalties, recovered only to ninth, dropping more than 100 points behind his team-mate for the first time, while Hamilton slid from podium contention to sixth as his tyres faded late in the race.
For the title to be decided in Austin, Antonelli must win Sunday’s race, with Russell finishing ninth or lower and Hamilton fifth or lower, Sky Sports and ESPN reported. That would leave him 125 points clear with exactly 125 points available across the five remaining rounds in Mexico, Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Even if Russell then won every race, Antonelli would take the crown on countback, as a ninth victory of the season would put him beyond the maximum of eight Russell could reach. Antonelli has eight wins this year to Russell’s three.
An Antonelli victory in Texas would also mathematically eliminate Verstappen, Leclerc and Norris, all of whom remain in contention on paper. Any result other than a win would postpone the celebrations until at least the Mexico City Grand Prix the following weekend.
The calculation could still shift. ESPN reported that the Qatar and Abu Dhabi rounds, scheduled for Nov 29 and Dec 6, face question marks over the conflict in the Middle East, and that Formula 1 has a contingency plan to replace both with a single race at Imola in Italy. Should that happen, the championship would be one round shorter and Antonelli would need to leave Austin only 100 points clear, meaning a win would be enough on its own regardless of where his rivals finished.
Victory in the championship this year would make Antonelli, in only his second Formula 1 season, the youngest world champion in the sport’s history, taking the record from Sebastian Vettel. He would also become the first Italian to win the drivers’ title since Alberto Ascari in 1953. Speaking to Sky Sports, Antonelli vowed to stay focused on his own performance, saying: “If I don’t do my job well, then the result won’t come.”
The United States Grand Prix, the 18th round of the 2026 season, runs from Oct 23 to 25 and opens a triple-header that continues in Mexico and Brazil. The original Formula 1 post can be viewed on X: https://x.com/F1/status/2112512906848096546.
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