Kimi Antonelli leads the Formula 1 world championship after eight of 22 races, a position that would be notable for any driver and is remarkable for one who turned 19 the season before he got there. The Mercedes driver became the youngest points leader in F1 history earlier this year, breaking a record Lewis Hamilton had held since 2007, and he arrives at this weekend’s British Grand Prix having built a cushion few expected from a rookie-turned-contender in only his second full season.
Antonelli sits on 171 points after finishing third at the Austrian Grand Prix on June 29, with teammate George Russell winning that race and closing to within 40 points in second (131). Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton is third on 125, ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who are bunched between 79 and 80 points. Max Verstappen, the four-time defending champion, sits seventh on 73 points, a sign of how much Red Bull has struggled to adapt to F1’s new technical regulations.
Russell described the Austria win, his second of the season, as validation after a difficult stretch. “Incredible to be back on the top step,” he said. “It’s been a little while so I’m definitely going to enjoy this one this evening. A lot of hard work from my team to get us back on track.” Antonelli, who has largely downplayed the championship talk, struck a similarly measured tone after taking the points lead for the first time in Japan. “It feels pretty good,” he said. “Of course it’s still early days to think about the Championship but we’re in a good way.”
Mercedes has won 7 of the season’s first 8 races, an extraordinary return under rules that overhauled the sport’s power units and aerodynamics this year. Verstappen has been the new regulations’ most vocal critic, calling the cars “completely undriveable” during a difficult qualifying session in China and going further afterward. “It’s terrible, if someone likes this, then you really don’t know what racing is about,” he said. “For me, it’s really a joke.”
The Italian’s rise has been just as steep in results as in the standings. Antonelli has won five of the eight races run so far this season, added two more podiums and four pole positions, numbers that already outstrip what most world champions manage in a full campaign. He arrived in Formula 1 last year with a reputation as one of junior racing’s most complete prospects, and Mercedes handed him Hamilton’s old seat after the sport’s most decorated driver left for Ferrari. Eight races into his second season, that bet already looks vindicated.
A start Mercedes has seen before
Mercedes’ dominance in 2026 is not unprecedented, even for this team. The last time F1 tore up its power unit rules and started over, in 2014, Mercedes won 7 of the first 8 races as well, losing only the Canadian Grand Prix to Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. That season ended with Mercedes drivers finishing first and second in the championship and the start of a run that produced eight consecutive constructors’ titles. The parallel is not exact: Hamilton’s Ferrari has already broken Mercedes’ streak once this year by winning in Spain, something no rival managed in the first eight races of 2014. But the underlying story looks familiar, a manufacturer that read a regulation reset better than anyone else and built a car the rest of the field is still trying to understand.
For Antonelli, who was eight years old when Mercedes started that 2014 run, the comparison is mostly academic. What matters this weekend is Silverstone, the first British Grand Prix since the current sprint format returned to the venue, and a chance to extend a lead that already has him on pace to challenge Hamilton’s youngest-champion record next. Mercedes’ recent growth off the track has coincided with this on-track run, giving the team its strongest season in years on both fronts. For a full breakdown of what changed under the new rules, see our explainer on motorsport technology reshaping racing, and follow the rest of the season in our racing coverage.
