When will Kimi Antonelli win the 2026 F1 championship? How he's set to be crowned in Mexico

Kimi Antonelli is on the brink of securing the Formula 1 World Championship after his ninth victory of the season at the United States Grand Prix.

The 20-year-old just needs to finish ninth or higher at the Mexican Grand Prix next weekend to claim the two points required to guarantee himself the title.

If neither Lewis Hamilton nor George Russell win the race, then Antonelli will claim the championship no matter where he finishes.

Antonelli’s closest title rivals could only manage the bare minimum to keep themselves in the fight: Lewis Hamilton is 124 points adrift after finishing fourth at Circuit of the Americas, with a maximum of 125 points available. George Russell is 123 points behind.

It means that Antonelli is all but certain to be champion. He’ll be 20 years and 68 days old at the Mexican Grand Prix on November 1, where he’s expected to become the youngest F1 champion in history by far – more than three years younger than the current record-holder, Sebastian Vettel, when he won his first title.

The only way to stop him now is for either Hamilton and Russell to win all of the remaining five races while Antonelli fails to score (or scores just a single point in the case of Russell).

If tensions in the Middle East rise again, and Formula 1 cannot hold the Qatar and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix – hosting the season finale at Imola, in Italy, instead, then Antonelli is already world champion.

Here is how the 2026 title is set to be decided, from the most likely outcome to the unprecedented scenarios that would need a minor miracle.

Who can still win the 2026 F1 championship?

Just three drivers remain in contention, and two of them are barely holding on.

With a maximum of 125 points available for the remainder of the season, Hamilton and Russell’s deficit means that they would have to mount a comeback of the like that’s never been seen in F1, winning every remaining race, while Antonelli has a catastrophic run of luck.

Three drivers dropped out of mathematical contention after the United States Grand Prix: Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris

F1 championship points after Round 18, United States GP

When can Antonelli win the F1 championship?

Mexico City Grand Prix, November 1 LIKELY

Antonelli has scored an average of 18.6 points at the 18 grands prix so far this season, and Russell has scored 12. Those figures have remained fairly steady since the Belgian Grand Prix in July.

If that trend continues, Antonelli will become world champion in Mexico when, going by the averages, he would have 384 points to Russell’s 254 and Hamilton’s 253; an unassailable gap with just four races and 100 points left.

That projection has Antonelli finishing the season on 458 points, 158 points ahead of Russell – an impressive margin that allows plenty of room for errors or mechanical misfortune.

While the projected winning margin is large, it is nowhere near the 290 points between world champion Verstappen and second-placed Sergio Perez in 2023.

How can George Russell win the F1 championship?

It’s unlikely that Russell will be contemplating his slim chances of title success, given that he’ll have to take another engine penalty and start from the back of the grid once more this season: it’s not completely over but the odds are so long that we’re now obliged to phrase it as “mathematically possible”.

The maths isn’t the difficult bit: Russell has to outscore Antonelli by 124 points over the next five grands prix; an average of almost 25 points each weekend — which boils down to him winning each remaining race while Antonelli scores no more than a single point for the rest of the year. Given his average score per race is over six points behind Antonelli, it would require some swing in performance.

If Russell wins every remaining grand prix, he’ll finish on 367 points. Antonelli currently has 365. A draw would be no good for Russell: Antonelli’s tally of nine GP victories means he will definitely end the season with more wins than any other driver – the decider in the case of a points tie.

Given Russell’s recent form and the likelihood of having to take another engine penalty, Antonelli is unlikely to be losing much sleep over this scenario.

And Hamilton?

If Hamilton won his eighth world championship in 2026, the feat would surpass anything he’s achieved so far. Five wins from five would just be the start: he’d need Antonelli to fail to score a single points between now and the end of the season.

What if the final races are cancelled?

Unrest in the Middle East raises the possibility of the final two rounds – Qatar and Abu Dhabi – being cancelled. F1 is understood to have retained Imola as a reserve, which would mean 25 fewer points available this season.

In that scenario, with 100 points remaining, Antonelli is already world champion .

Remaining races in the 2026 F1 season