Kimi Antonelli becomes youngest Formula One champion with third place in Mexican GP

Kimi Antonelli has won the Formula One world championship after finishing in third place at the Mexican Grand Prix, which was won by Max Verstappen. In taking his debut F1 title for Mercedes, the 20-year-old is the youngest driver to claim the sport’s crown and the first Italian to do so since Alberto Ascari last won in 1953.

Antonelli brought what has been a hugely successful campaign to a close at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez to claim the championship in only his second season in F1 and with four meetings still to go. Sebastian Vettel was the previous youngest winner of the drivers’ championship, aged 23 in 2010, when Antonelli was just four years old.

The Italian has been leading from the front for almost the entire season, having taken the lead after the third round in Japan. With the Mercedes proving to be the class of the field in the opening half of the season under the new regulations, Antonelli made the most of it and established a dominant lead. He won five of the first six races, outracing his team-mate George Russell, who had been the preseason favourite.

Antonelli went on to take nine wins in a season where he barely put a foot wrong and failed to score points only twice, on both occasions because of mechanical failures. Even as Mercedes were pushed by Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull, Antonelli retained a stranglehold on his lead, including sealing a win from 19th on the grid at his home grand prix at Monza.

Russell and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton were his nearest contenders but neither was able to significantly narrow the gap to the Italian. The victory represents a vindication of the enormous faith Mercedes had placed in Antonelli, whom the team brought into their young driver programme when he was 12. He was promoted to take Hamilton’s place last season, which proved a difficult year for the rookie but since which he has adapted to competing at the very sharp end with alacrity and great skill.

He went into the race in Mexico needing only ninth place or better and he delivered nervelessly, a performance indicative of the form he has shown across the season, to close out his first title with complete control. – Guardian