Antonelli’s Canada win sparks Mercedes title talk

Kimi Antonelli’s victory in the Canadian Grand Prix gave the Mercedes driver a fourth straight Formula 1 win and stretched his championship lead over teammate George Russell to 43 points, turning his breakout 2026 run into a serious title campaign.

Antonelli’s surge began with his first career win in China and has now reached four in a row, with Canada offering the clearest sign yet that Mercedes could face an internal fight for the championship. The young Italian spent much of the race applying pressure to Russell before converting that pace into another win.

That result also changed the conversation around Antonelli. Instead of asking whether he could keep this form going, attention shifted to how he should handle a title battle, with Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen both weighing in after sharing the podium with him in Montreal.

Lewis Hamilton, speaking to RacingNews365 and other media after the Canadian Grand Prix, joked: “You forget that we are rivals.” He added that he was “really not going to give him any more tips” because Antonelli is “already doing top work.”

Hamilton said his own first title fight as a rookie in 2007 felt very different. He described that season as intense and said Antonelli now has a stronger support structure around him than he felt he had at McLaren. Hamilton pointed to Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff in particular, saying he has “done a great job of surrounding you with the right support.” By contrast, Hamilton said the “right elements” were not in place then to support him, keep him stable and guide him through that period.

Max Verstappen’s advice was more direct. Speaking after the race, he said Antonelli is “clearly doing a fantastic job,” but warned that “a championship is long” and is won by “performing consistently and making no mistakes.” Verstappen said that if Antonelli keeps trying every weekend to “get the maximum out of it and be better than your teammate,” then “he has a good chance.”

The scale of Antonelli’s rise was underscored away from the track when Formula 1’s official account shared a 2018 Monza grid photo showing a 12-year-old Antonelli standing in front of Hamilton and Verstappen before the start. The caption summed up what Canada had come to represent for Mercedes’ new points leader: “Idols are now rivals.”