In 2024 a bombshell hit the motorsport world where 7 time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton announced he would leave Mercedes for Ferrari which left a vacant seat in one of F1’s most soughtafter teams. Many names were mentioned but only one came out on top; a 19 year old from Bologna, Italy named Andrea Kimi Antonelli. People called him inexperienced, many called him overhyped but now, each of them will refer to him as the F1 2026 World Champion!

1st November 2026-The date history was rewritten for Formula One as anew youngest world champion is crowned and the record holder is Andrea Kimi Antonelli. He has had an up and down season. Lets look back on his season and show why he is a deserving champion.

Antonelli’s Single Seater Junior Career:

Antonelli started his single seater career within the Formula 4 categories with Italian F4 at Prema, collecting 3 podiums in 9 races and finishing P10 overall. In the UAE F4 Championship trophy round that same year, he did 1 race, 1 pole, 1 podium and 1 P3 overall.

2022 Saw a big step for the young Italian. 4 championships and 3 championship wins at Italianand ADAC F4. Within the 20 races in the Italian series he got 13 wins with 9 wins from 15 races in ADAC.

2023 Allowed Kimi to focus on the Regional championships with Middle East and European series’. In the Middle East, 15 races with 3 wins allowed him to take the title with 20 races and 5 wins in the European counterpart also allowed him to take the title.

In 2024, would you expect Kimi to go to F3 right? Well not exactly. He completelt skipped that series, jumping straight to F2 and partnering Oliver Bearman in Prema. While the teams performances were not on par with previous years, he still managed to get 2 race wins, a sprint race win in the wet at Silverstone and a feature race win at the Hungaroring, finishing with 3 total podiums and 6th overall in the standings.

2025 saw Kimi take a big leap with his debut season in F1. This season was a mixed bag with his teammate George Russell dominating him with race wins, poles and podiums. However, the young Italian still managed to get 3 podiums towards the end of the season which has led us to 2026.

Where are we now

As of writing, before the Mexico City Grand Prix, Andrea Kimi Antonelli has completed 19 races this year, has 9 race wins and 15 podiums. A massive statement from the young Italian and with him now becoming the F1’s youngest world champion.

While Antonelli has benefitted from being in the right place at the right time for certain situations like Japan, for example with the Safety Car and the Italian Grand Prix restart after 2 laps, he has also had misfortune like Barcelona-Catalunya where he had an engine issue and Silverstone where (after an error from Kimi’s side) he was attempting to finish in the points but a safety car finish led it to not happen.

Those areas of luck and misfortunte shouldn’t turn you away from his insane form this year such as Monaco where he managed to go from pole to the win with 2 standing starts, great wins in China and Circuit of the Americas.

He is so fast, and is definitely a talented young man who has multiple world championships within him!