Kimi Antonelli lined up 19th on the Monza grid on Sunday, an engine-allocation penalty having erased everything he did in qualifying. Fifty-three laps later he crossed the line 3.857 seconds clear of Mercedes team-mate George Russell to win the Italian Grand Prix — the second-lowest starting position a Formula 1 race has ever been won from.
Only John Watson has done better, winning from 22nd at Long Beach in 1983. Antonelli did it at his home race, in front of a Monza crowd that spent the closing laps on its feet and the podium ceremony booing the man he had just beaten.
Chaos, then a clinical drive
The race was broken almost before it began. Charles Leclerc lost the Ferrari at the high-speed final corner in the opening laps and hit the tyre barrier, taking Lewis Hamilton through the gravel in the process and bringing out the red flag. Pierre Gasly, who had converted a superb Saturday into the first pole position of his career, led the restart for Alpine.
Antonelli was third and within 1.8 seconds of the lead by lap 13 — a scything run through the field that Toto Wolff later compared to Hamilton’s traffic craft at his best. The Mercedes principal had called it before the start: “Either George, because he was on the front row, or Kimi because he’s going to walk over water, here at Monza.”
The race turned on lap 29. Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin failed, the virtual safety car was deployed, and Mercedes split their drivers: Antonelli took fresh mediums, Russell stayed out on worn hards to protect track position. It bought Antonelli roughly 20 laps of tyre advantage and cost Russell the race. A first attempt at Turn 2 failed when broken tarmac forced Antonelli wide, but with three laps to run he went through at the Ascari chicane and was gone.
- 1. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
- 2. George Russell (Mercedes) +3.857s
- 3. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +14.718s
- 4. Lando Norris (McLaren) +19.056s
- 5. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +19.253s
- 6. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +24.655s
- 7. Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +27.351s
Sixty years of waiting, ended
No Italian driver had won at Monza since Ludovico Scarfiotti took his Ferrari to victory in 1966. Antonelli, in a Mercedes rather than a red car, ended a 60-year wait in the most improbable circumstances available — from 19th, after a penalty, on a circuit where overtaking is possible but a 18-place recovery is not supposed to be.
It was his seventh win of a season in which he has now won seven of 13 races, and it confirms him as the most successful Italian driver in Formula 1 since Alberto Ascari’s second title in 1953. Ferrari’s afternoon, by contrast, was a familiar Monza tragedy: Leclerc in the barriers before the race had properly started, Hamilton recovering only to sixth.
Wolff’s assessment of his 20-year-old was pointed. He described Antonelli’s development as being like “an AI agent that continuously self-improves and learns” — a line that reads as marketing until you look at the trajectory from rookie mistakes to a race like this one, where he managed traffic, tyre temperature and a team-mate in a straight fight without a single error.
The title is his to lose
Antonelli arrived at Monza 59 points clear. He leaves it 66 ahead, on 267 points to Russell’s 201, with Hamilton third on 191 and Lando Norris fourth on 171. Verstappen’s podium lifted him only to sixth on 127 — a season in which Red Bull’s title defence has effectively collapsed, the team fourth in the constructors’ standings on 204 points behind Mercedes (468), Ferrari (346) and McLaren (287).
Russell, who has now been beaten by his team-mate in a straight strategic fight at a circuit that suited him, was blunt afterwards: “It’s definitely Kimi’s in control of it. It’s going to be exceptionally challenging to overcome that gap.”
That is the real significance of Monza. A 66-point lead with the season past its midpoint is not mathematically closed, but it requires Antonelli to fail repeatedly rather than Russell to simply be quicker. Mercedes must now decide how long they let two drivers race each other for a championship only one of them can realistically win — and on the evidence of lap 50 at the Ascari chicane, that decision may already have been made for them.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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