Max Verstappen teases Kimi Antonelli as champion-elect names his biggest mistakes of 2026

Antonelli won in Austin from pole position. It was his ninth Grand Prix victory of the year, and it means a top-nine finish at the Mexico City Grand Prix this weekend will make him champion. As GPblog explained in Max Verstappen holds key to Kimi Antonelli's F1 title in Mexico, the Dutchman could even decide when that happens. In Texas, though, the four-time champion, who can no longer win the title himself, settled for teasing him.

When asked which situations he still wanted to improve, Antonelli started with the opening round. "First of all, Australia FP3, the mistake..." where in Melbourne he took too much of the exit kerb at Turn 2 and hit the barrier hard. The crash brought out the red flag, and Mercedes then had to rush to repair the car before qualifying.

"Japan, I had a bad execution at the start," he went on. He dropped from pole to sixth at Suzuka and only won the race because a well-timed Safety Car handed him a cheap pit stop. Next he pointed to the Miami sprint: "Then Miami as well, the sprint race, just throwing away points as well with track limits. Yeah, track limits has been the bigger thing for me."

Antonelli took the joke well. "Yeah, only one! It was good today," he answered, before adding: "So, yeah, just making sure I improve those." He also admitted that, in moments like these and "in some of the qualifying sessions, I just didn't go in with the right mindset."

The numbers support his self-assessment. By August, he'd accumulated five-second track-limits penalties in the Miami sprint, in Barcelona and at Silverstone. On top of those came a 10-second penalty for colliding with Isack Hadjar in the China sprint and a three-place grid drop for not slowing enough under yellow flags in Hungary.

In Miami he crossed the line fourth, but four infringements, the last of them on the final lap, dropped him to sixth and turned five points into three. In Barcelona the stewards missed his fourth breach at Turn 10 until later in the race. He retired before he had to serve the penalty. At Silverstone a wheel-shield failure left him fighting the car, and the resulting track-limits penalty pushed him from ninth on the road to outside the points.

He already admitted the habit in Hungary. "You guys know I like to use the track sometimes a bit too much," he said then, and he called his track limits at Spa "very stupid".

That is why Verstappen's joke has a serious side heading into this weekend. Silverstone showed exactly how a ninth place, the result Antonelli needs on Sunday, can disappear after the flag because of one excursion too many. In Austin he kept it to a single infringement. A repeat in Mexico City would leave little to go wrong between him and the title.