Antonelli wins US Grand Prix but F1 title waits: ninth in Mexico is enough
Kimi Antonelli won in Austin from pole, but Hamilton's fourth place kept the title alive. What he needs in Mexico City next week, and the full top 10.
Kimi Antonelli won the US Grand Prix in Austin on Sunday, 25 October, his ninth win of the season, but he is not world champion yet. Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and George Russell eighth, just enough to stop the title being settled in Texas. Antonelli now needs only a ninth place, two points, in Mexico City next week.
This is a follow-up to our preview from Saturday, which set out the three things that had to happen for him to be crowned in Austin. Only the first one did.
How the race went
Antonelli started from pole and was two seconds clear after the first lap, Dawn reported. He stayed out on his first set of tyres until lap 24, then took the lead back after the stops and controlled the rest of the 56 laps. Charles Leclerc finished 13.078 seconds behind in the Ferrari, with Max Verstappen third, 17.485 seconds back, according to the AP results.
The fights behind him decided the title maths. Russell picked up a five-second penalty for running off track on the opening lap. Lando Norris was running second late on, but his tyres faded and he fell to fifth. Verstappen battled Leclerc for second early, lost it, and then held off a closing Hamilton for third.
US Grand Prix top 10
- Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
- Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
- Max Verstappen, Red Bull
- Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
- Lando Norris, McLaren
- Isack Hadjar, Red Bull
- Oscar Piastri, McLaren
- George Russell, Mercedes
- Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls
- Pierre Gasly, Alpine
What Antonelli needs in Mexico
AP reports he leaves Austin with a 123-point lead over Russell, with Hamilton one point further back. With five races and 125 points left, a finish of ninth or better in Mexico City seals it whatever the others do, and AP points out that if neither Russell nor Hamilton wins in Mexico, he is champion wherever he finishes. Verstappen is now mathematically out of the running for a fifth title.
When it happens, the 20-year-old Italian becomes F1’s youngest ever champion, beating Sebastian Vettel’s record, as Dawn notes, and the first Italian champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953.
What they said
“Good job everyone, that’s the result we needed,” Antonelli said on team radio after the flag, as quoted by Dawn. Leclerc said Ferrari “came up just short of our target, which was victory,” while Verstappen admitted Red Bull’s “overall pace was not good enough” and that they were “a bit lucky at the end.”
Our take
It felt like a coronation that got postponed rather than cancelled. With a lead that size, the only real question for Mexico is whether he can finish a race, not win one. For Pakistani fans who stayed up past 1am for Sunday’s race, the good news is that next week’s title moment should again fall in the Pakistani night, so check the official F1 schedule for the exact start time.
Sources
This story was researched and drafted with AI assistance, then checked and edited by our editor before publishing.
