At Monza, Kimi Antonelli announced himself as an F1 great. Below left: Italy was his eighth win
All season we have been waxing lyrical about the brilliant progress that Kimi Antonelli has made between his rookie season last year and his second campaign in 2026, but the Italian Grand Prix will, I believe, go down as the day in which he announced himself to the world as one of the truly special ones.
We knew in Holland two weeks before that Kimi would have the penalty for Italy and the general feeling coming into the weekend was that this was going to be a huge opportunity for George Russell to strike back in the world championship. Starting from the back Kimi knew this was a weekend of damage limitation, but he still talked about how his target was to try and get on the podium. Despite a brilliant lap from Pierre Gasly, George put himself on the front row and took the lead at the end of the first lap.
Xavi Bonilla/florent Gooden/dppi Media
In the commentary box I was watching the onboard video of Kimi’s opening lap and it was fascinating to see the change between the Antonelli of 2025 and the one who smartly, patiently and strategically picked his way through seven cars on the opening lap and put himself up into 12th place. By the time we got to the restart he quickly made up another four places on the second start, once again without any contact or damaging his front wing which was key to him then having a direct line of sight to the lead cars.
What has been particularly impressive to watch about Kimi this year is his controlled aggression. He certainly drives a car very differently to George and you can see several more micro inputs into the steering wheel at every corner yet he doesn’t seem to be overloading the tyres.
At Monza I spent quite a lot of time watching the onboard videos of him attacking the throttle on the exit of the chicanes and it really was quite majestic. The rear of the car seemed right on the edge off falling off the precipice of grip yet he did it lap after lap overloading the tyres.
This is something that we really have not seen in the Pirelli era of F1 since 2011 – in fact it reminded me a lot of the way we used to watch Michael Schumacher drive in the mid 1990s when the cars didn’t have as much aero performance as they did a few years later. If you watch a video of Schumacher in the 1996 Ferrari you’ll see him constantly hustling it and balancing the steering and throttle. This style of attack has tended to just overload and destroy the Pirelli tyres which is why it was amazing to watch how Kimi has arrived with this style of driving and is making it work brilliantly well with the lower downforce cars we have this year.
Motor Sport F1 Show with Mark Hughes
Leading the world championship aged 19, Kimi Antonelli has proved he has the pace to win the title — and this could be his best shot. Plus: how GPs could be shortened over safety fears, and why Max Verstappen is serious in threatening to quit
On to Madrid and a track that had a lot of noise and buzz going in yet produced incredibly dull race. In reality a lot of this noise came from the potential for crashes and safety cars rather than a good race because it was pretty obvious to anyone who has driven an F1 car that this was not going to be a track that was good for overtaking. Fundamentally the circuit had way too many corners and also too many braking zones where you are cornering one way and then turning the other which meant that there was no real opportunity for overtaking.
Most race tracks on the F1 calendar today really have only one or two key overtaking points but you can get away with that as long as you do have those one or two points. Even the more recent street circuits like Vegas, Baku or Jeddah have managed to create some overtaking opportunities and yet while everyone was very focused on how great the ‘La Monumental’ corner was before the race it feels like there wasn’t enough focus on the “raceability” of the track.
“Most race tracks in F1 have one or two key overtaking points”
I do feel sympathy for the promoters in Madrid because having worked with a circuit design company for many years, I know how hard it is to build a circuit and put on a Grand Prix. It is especially hard to put on a street track as you are limited by existing buildings and infrastructure but ultimately it is much worse to build something that then gets universal negativity from drivers and fans.
The first race we had in Baku in 2016 was utterly dull and let’s be honest the Monaco races when it doesn’t rain are awful to watch, but Baku we knew had potential because of the layout creating overtaking opportunities and Monaco has the history which gives it a bit of a free pass. Sadly for Madrid they will need to make some changes ahead of next year.
