EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsMIAMI -- Mercedes wonderkid Kimi Antonelli continued his charge towards Formula 1 megastardom with his third straight victory at the Miami Grand Prix, one which boosted his fairytale championship lead.The Italian teenage sensation, who only turned 19 last August, has seized control of the early stages of the championship race in only his second F1 season. To most observers, it was an unlikely situation -- many fans and pundits thought the early season would be dominated by his much more experienced Mercedes teammate, preseason favourite George Russell.Russell even strengthened that feeling by winning 2026's opening race, Melbourne's Australian Grand Prix, but Antonelli has now won three straight and leaves Miami with a 20-point advantage over the Englishman.It's early days in a championship which stretches to 22 races and ends in early December, but Antonelli's Sunday performance in Miami was a mighty statement, holding off reigning world champion Lando Norris to claim victory. It was not flawless -- even by his own admission -- and he clearly still has a lot of work to do when it comes to his starts, but Antonelli has been mistake-free when it counts and has shown the blistering pace Mercedes predicted he would eventually carry over from his phenomenal karting and junior career into Formula 1.It was a bizarre race, as it turned out -- taking place three hours earlier than scheduled for a thunderstorm which never came anyway. Whatever your view on F1's much-debated new cars and the new form of yo-yo racing it has created, Antonelli navigated his own battles for position flawlessly -- especially after appearing to falter off the line as he has at every start so far this year."The start was still not great, plus I made a mistake, then I was lucky with how things played out despite the mistake," Antonelli said. "And then, yeah, then obviously we were in a fight, me, Charles and Lando, and then I got passed by Lando, did a little mistake on energy, and then I was chasing. And then luckily the undercut worked very well, and then we found ourselves being chased. But it was not easy because Lando was quick and he was applying a lot of pressure. And I just knew I couldn't make any mistakes [after that]."Asked if he expected to be in such a position so early in his career, Antonelli said: "No, I did not expect it. And yeah, I mean, obviously we're living such a good moment. It's still a very long season and there are so many things that can change. George for sure is going to be super strong in Canada; he's always been very strong there, so he's for sure going to be back at the top."On the other side of the Mercedes garage, the pressure on Russell is rising. He's finished fourth at his last three races -- the Japanese Grand Prix, Miami's sprint and Miami's grand prix -- and the Canadian Grand Prix at the end of the month seems like a crucial moment in his season already. While he might have reason to be flustered, he was putting on a brave face after Sunday's race."No, not at all," Russell said when asked if he had underestimated Antonelli in any way. "He's a fantastic driver. He's been exceptionally quick since day one. You don't win all of the championships as a youngster if you don't have the speed. But I've still got confidence in myself, and I've also been there, I've not forgotten how to drive. It's a little bit of a tricky run, but we're four races down, have a long way to go and we'll assess things over these next few weeks."Three in a row: Can Antonelli be stopped?Antonelli's current run really is something special. The Italian put himself in legendary company across the two days of the weekend. On Saturday, he took pole, meaning his first three career grand prix pole positions have come at three consecutive races. The only other drivers to have achieved that are Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Then, on Sunday, he won, meaning his first three career victories have come at three consecutive races. The only other drivers to achieve that are Damon Hill and Mika Hakkinen.Two of those four men have a claim to be the sport's greatest ever drivers, while the other two were both great world champions. The comparisons to the past get more impressive. Of the 23 drivers who have ever claimed three straight race wins, 20 have gone on to be world champions. Incredible stuff for someone who legally would not be able to buy a beer in the U.S. to toast his most recent win.When that factoid was put to him, he answered it as you might expect a 19-year-old to. "It's a cool stat, but I don't really want to think too much about it," he said on Sunday afternoon. "I'm just going to enjoy the moment, but I know at the same time that we're just going to get back to work early because obviously we have another break, let's say, which is not ideal."But yeah, just going to try to prepare Canada the best way possible in order to be back even stronger. But yeah, it's cool, I guess."Antonelli is the epitome of cool at the moment. He talks and races with an air of someone who is just oozing with confidence. His recent run is a far cry from the rookie Antonelli, who struggled for large stretches of 2025. The contrast in performances between the inconsistent Antonelli and Russell, who was one of the strongest drivers throughout the season, only strengthened the preseason narrative that the latter would comfortably ease away this year.In fact, Antonelli's up-and-down season had been so alarming at points that it was not difficult to find people in the paddock who felt as though Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had goofed spectacularly by giving a teenage driver a car which had belonged to Lewis Hamilton when sport's most accomplished driver left for Ferrari. Wolff's philosophy on the occasionally erratic Antonelli has always been the same, and he echoed it again in Miami."It seems like a lot of the speed has always been there; everything is chipping away at the finer details," Wolff said. "It's easier to slow someone, calm someone down that is wild, because you won't be able to accelerate a donkey, so for me that was his best race so far. It reminds me of his karting days or Formula 4, there were no mistakes today."Clearly, Antonelli is no donkey. Even while struggling as a rookie, his blistering pace was always there. Things appear to have clicked together this season -- which often happens when a driver of significant talent is finally given a top-level car. Reigning world champion Norris -- who lost out in the fight for victory with the Mercedes driver on Sunday -- alluded to Antonelli's rookie year as he praised the Italian's start to the season."He's doing a very good job, hats off to him," Norris said. "At that age, second year in Formula 1 - he's doing an incredible job, it's impressive. To perform under pressure, to be beating his teammate who's been in it for a lot longer, he's doing all the right things, so you can't really fault him at the minute. He got a lot of s--- last year, but he's proving a lot of people wrong, so I'm very happy for him. He's a very nice guy ... and he's also annoying, because I want to beat him. But he's doing a good job."Norris might be able to sympathise with the situation his old friend Russell now finds himself in. There are remarkable similarities between the start of 2026 and the start of 2025. Like Russell this year, Norris entered last season with the favourites tag and, like Russell, won the Australian Grand Prix. Last year the role of Antonelli at Mercedes was played by Oscar Piastri at McLaren, who stormed into the lead in the races which followed and completely reshaped the narrative. Norris would eventually overcome his teammate (and Max Verstappen for good measure) in a topsy-turvy season, but his struggles in the early part of the year were a major talking point.Similar attention will now be paid to Russell and how he reacts to Antonelli flipping the early prediction on its head so early.Miami was especially significant because Russell had no answers to Antonelli's pace. Asked by ESPN if he was at all worried by the big gap, even so early in the season, Russell shrugged and shook his head. "To be honest, I'm not even considering it," he said. "It's just I want to get back onto the top step of the podium. The first three races I had the performance to do that. This weekend I absolutely did not have the performance to do that. So I could be standing here now with three very different results from the previous races, and then this just being a bit of a one-off. But obviously things worked out differently in Japan and China, so yeah, that's the way it goes sometimes".Anyone who followed 2025's season will know that May is far too early to declare one driver a champion -- Piastri led Norris by 34 points in September and still did not win the title, after all. The Mercedes car also looks likely to be strong enough to propel Antonelli and Russell to wins all season, so we have to assume that Russell will find himself back in form at some point. McLaren might well end up being a factor, with Norris' performance across the weekend a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.Even if all those things are true, Antonelli is the man of the moment, and Russell's biggest task now is to raise his game to meet it. Miami was always going to be one of Antonelli's strongest venues -- he claimed sprint pole there 12 months ago -- but Canada is a Russell circuit, where he has always performed exceptionally well, and it seems like a key place for the Englishman to snap Antonelli's freight train in its tracks."Clearly he's in a really great place at the moment, and momentum is with him," Russell said. "But I've got enough experience myself with championships I've won to know how momentum swings -- also, in the championship [battle] last year."
