Kimi Antonelli took victory in Austin taking the championship fight to Mexico City
Formula 1 headed to Austin, Texas last weekend, where the championship battle could have been decided as we head into the last two triple headers of the 2026 season. Kimi Antonelli could have won the championship if he won the race with teammate Russell in P9 or lower and Lewis Hamilton in P5 or lower.
Friday
With no more sprint races in the remainder of the season, the weekend returned to the normal format after the Singapore Grand Prix two weeks ago. FP1 saw Sergio Perez sit the session out as Cadillac allowed their American reserve driver Colton Herta to drive the session in his home country. Max had a different race engineer for this weekend as Tom Hart was with him, who will be his new race engineer when Gianpiero Lambiase leaves to McLaren. Charles Leclerc was showing good pace through the session as he managed to consistently stay at the top of the leaderboard and finished the session in first. Shortly behind him was Max Verstappen in second and Lando Norris in third.
FP2 involved the most track limit violations with race control deleting 128 different lap times. There was a lot of traffic with Esteban Ocon being stuck behind one of the Ferraris. Max Verstappen had nearly collided with Liam Lawson at Turn 1 as he was overtaking the VCARB driver to put a lap in. Isack Hadjar had some issues with his car with the high speed front degradation of his tyres. Both McLaren’s had gone off the track with Oscar Piastri going off at Turn 12 and Lando Norris having a snap at the last corner and then again at Turn 15. Topping the session again was Charles Leclerc with a 1:35.291s, followed by Kimi Antonelli in P2 and Max Verstappen in P3.
Saturday
Over the night, the FIA had decided to widen the corners at Turns 12, 15 and 20 to help mitigate the track limits that were violated the day before. Early on in the session, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc both had their lap times deleted for track limits at Turn 12 despite the track being adjusted. In the last 10 minutes of the session, Red Bull were facing issues with Verstappen locking up in the last sector and having a slide and Hadjar nearly colliding with Albon at Turn 1. The session ended with the Ferrari looking strong again with Hamilton at the top of the board with a 1:34.893s. In total, there were only 42 track infringements in this session.
Moving on to qualifying, the Ferrari drivers were looking like the top contenders for pole given the results of the three practice sessions. Pierre Gasly was the first driver to go beyond track limits at Turn 9 after managing a lap that put him up into P10. He was later given a black and white flag later on in Q1 for driving unnecessarily slowly. Fernando Alonso had a fire come out at the back of his car so the mechanics brought him back in to see what the issue was. Lando Norris led the pack in Q1 with a time of 1:35.029 and being eliminated was Ocon, Stroll, Sainz, Albon, Perez and Bottas. Fernando Alonso was cleared by the mechanics to be able to drive for the second third of qualifying. Ollie Bearman was the second driver to be shown the black and white flag for the same reason as Gasly in Q1; driving unnecessarily slowly.
The rest of this session went smoothly with Gasly, Hulkenberg, Bortoleto, Colapinto, Alonso and Bearman eliminated. Bearman had originally qualified in 13th place but had the lap deleted for track limits at Turn 11. Liam Lawson was not able to complete a lap in Q3 as VCARB had found an issue with his car. Another driver shown the black and white was Max Verstappen for the same reasons as Gasly and Bearman and Ferrari’s pace from earlier in the weekend had slipped with nobody really improving their times on their last laps. In the end, it was Kimi Antonelli on pole looking for his first Formula 1 championship with last year’s winner Max Verstappen, starting on the front row behind him. The grid was subject to change however as Arvid Lindblad was given a five place grid penalty, Franco Colapinto with a 19 place grid penalty and Gabriel Bortoleto was due to start from the back of the grid.
Sunday
Some changes were made with 21 cars starting on the grid as Lance Stroll had to start from the pitlane due to engine changes. The lights went out as Kimi Antonelli had a good start by building a four second gap in the first few corners. Charles Leclerc had briefly stolen P2 from Verstappen before the Dutch man took it back. The VSC was brought out on Lap 2 as the marshals needed to come onto the track to clear some debris as there were some cars who had contact with each other on the first lap. After the VSC, George Russell was noted for leaving the track and gaining an advantage and when it was investigated, he was given a five second penalty. Another penalty handed out was to Ollie Bearman after he had collided with Pierre Gasly on the first lap.
Max Verstappen was the first driver to pit on Lap 14 moving from the soft compound of tyres to the hard tyres. Ferrari had reacted to this and boxed Hamilton hoping to get him back out behind Max but actually ended up behind Lawson instead. Race leader Antonelli came into the pits on Lap 25 to change to the hard tyres with Mercedes looking for a one stop strategy. Max Verstappen was in a different strategy however, as he had come in again on Lap 32 for a fresher set of hard tyres. Franco Colapinto was told to box to retire the car on Lap 37.
It was on Lap 46 where we watched a three way battle for P2 between Norris, Verstappen and Leclerc. Max had overtaken Lando on the straight just before Turn 1 with overtake mode and later in the lap at Turn 13, Norris had locked up which gave Leclerc P3. With Leclerc having fresher tyres than Max, he had managed to snatch P2 just before a late VSC was called on Lap 51 as Valtteri Bottas had stopped on track. The VSC ended on Lap 53 and the order stayed the same as Kimi Antonelli had gone on to win the United States Grand Prix. The young driver hadn’t managed to grab the championship win this round as Russell had finished P8 and Hamilton in P4.
Do you think Kimi Antonelli can win the championship next time out in Mexico?
Article Written by Sophie Wong
