''Wonderkid' Antonelli is the first who could truly challenge Verstappen'

After three Grand Prix wins, there’s no avoiding it: Kimi Antonelli is a major contender for the 2026 world title. That alone is remarkable for a boy of just 19 years old. Antonelli is the youngest championship leader ever and comfortably extended his lead in Miami.

The hype surrounding Antonelli grows with every race thanks to his performances. While the Italian was still prone to mistakes in 2025 and slipped up multiple times during the European leg of the season, Antonelli has started 2026 in excellent form. He had some luck in a few races, but in Miami Antonelli truly showed great maturity.

After taking pole position, the young driver had to fight for the lead, which he then had to defend until the end of the race against Lando Norris. The Brit seemed to have just a bit more pace, but Antonelli’s error-free display meant he could never launch a real attack.

You also have to see Antonelli’s leap in perspective. He’s doing this not only at 19 years old, but also in only his second season in the sport. With all that in mind, his growth compared to 2025 is impressive.

In that sense, Antonelli is the first to show similarities to Max Verstappen. Max also impressed in F1 at an extremely young age and broke all kinds of records. Where Leclerc, Russell, and Norris all seem just shy of reaching Max’s level, Antonelli appears to have the foundation to actually challenge him.

Still, it’s too early to say that already. Oscar Piastri also started 2025 well, only to completely tail off towards the end of the season. Something like that could still happen to Antonelli. The season is long, and in Europe last year Antonelli was also much less strong than at the fly-aways.

For Toto Wolff, the task is therefore to keep Kimi grounded, as he said in response to a question from GPblog. “The easy part is keeping him grounded in this team. His parents have played a very important role in keeping him grounded. The bigger problem is the Italian public.”

On the other side of the garage, the pressure is mounting. George Russell was the odds-on favorite heading into this season, and that favorite role only grew after the Australian Grand Prix. Three races later, however, Russell has fallen well behind. In China and Japan there were still plausible excuses for Russell; in Miami he was simply much slower than his teammate.